


I'll just keep on waiting for you underneath the mistletoe

by colazitron



Series: 2019 December Holiday Fic Countdown [12]
Category: Druck | SKAM (Germany)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:07:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 40,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22184578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colazitron/pseuds/colazitron
Summary: This is Matteo’s teen movie record-scratch you’re-probably-wondering-how-I-got-here moment, if ever there was one. David's eyes are going rounder with every moment that passes, every word that falls from Matteo's lips, every second Matteo spends staring only at him while he belts his heart out. He's not someone who seeks out the spotlight, and this is probably the most out of character thing he's done all year. So just how the fuckdidhe end up here?or: season 3, but it's a year of pining, basically
Relationships: David Schreibner/Leonie Richter, Jonas Augustin/Matteo Florenzi, Matteo Florenzi/David (Druck), Matteo Florenzi/OMC, Matteo Florenzi/Sara Adamczyk
Series: 2019 December Holiday Fic Countdown [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1559638
Comments: 109
Kudos: 171





	1. December 2019 - prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smallbump](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallbump/gifts).



> **A/N:** Once upon a December I meant to include this in my fic countdown, but... life. It happens. But I am stubborn, so I am writing it anyway! I've also decided to do the post-as-I-write thing with this one, which I never do, because it never works, so... send good vibes, please.
> 
> For smallbump, this is the third mistletoe fill, even if it's a bit of a stretch, and everyone who wanted me to write more friends-to-lovers.

_**December 2019** _

This is Matteo’s teen movie record-scratch you’re-probably-wondering-how-I-got-here moment, if ever there was one. For just a moment he feels like he's watching it all happen from outside his own body; the coloured lights twinkling around the stage-like set up, his friends all staring up at him with grins on their faces, clapping or even singing along with him, Kiki and Amira acting as his back-up.

And David.

David's eyes going rounder with every moment that passes, every word that falls from Matteo's lips, every second Matteo spends staring only at him while he belts his heart out. A little drunkenly, perhaps. A little off-key, probably. But earnestly anyway. There's not a fibre in his body that doesn't mean it, but Matteo isn't a performer. He's not someone who seeks out the spotlight, and this is probably the most out of character thing he's done all year.

So just how the fuck _did_ he end up here?


	2. January 2019 - I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matteo's not expecting the new year to bring much change. Then comes David.

_**January 2019** _

No matter how many times Matteo hears someone claim that a new year means a new me, he's not feeling it. 2019 Matteo is the same Matteo as 2018 Matteo. Completely unsurprisingly, the stroke of midnight did not come with sudden epiphanies or new resolve or anything other than a lot of drunken shouting, some fireworks, and an inevitable hangover a number of hours later.

Now school's started again and the only thing that's new is that the threat of the end of school exams is that much closer. Matteo never cared about his grades too much, but always enough to know he comfortably sat somewhere at the upper end of the middle spectrum. He hasn't been anywhere close to that since last school year, at least, and even just the idea of trying to get there again by the end of exam time is making him want to pull his duvet over his head and cry.

So he doesn't.

He's going to make sure he passes, because he doesn't think that he could make it through all this again. Not by himself. If he fails now, he fails forever, so he'll pass. That's enough. He doesn't have the energy to ask more of himself.

So, really, despite what everyone likes to claim, so far the new year has brought nothing new for Matteo at all. Old anxieties, old struggles, old weed, old chaos at home fucking him up.

And then comes David.

Or rather, then comes Jonas all but dragging David after him at lunch one time.

“Boys, this is David,” he announces with a certain air of gravitas. “He's new, so he could use a few friends to show him the ropes. And he's awesome, so let's be nice, okay?”

The boy stood half behind Jonas looks at them all like he's a little bored by the proceedings, hands stuffed into the pockets of his joggers, chunky headphones slung around his neck, a blue beanie covering his hair. He's so stunningly and unexpectedly handsome and _right there_ , he makes Matteo's heart fold in on itself like it's attempting to turn into a paper crane and fly right out of his chest.

And then Abdi gets up from his chair with a wide grin and enough enthusiasm to send the chair scraping over the floor with a horrible noise, and holds out a hand for David.

“Bro! Awesome! We'll let you in on all the trade secrets,” he promises, grin somehow going even brighter when David accepts his fist bump. “Like, if you've got maths with Mandl with Jonas, just make eye contact like twice a lesson and she'll think you're paying attention the whole time. She eats that shit up.”

Jonas jovially slaps David on the shoulder, and for a moment the blank expression on David's face slips, breaking open into one of surprise when his whole upper body jolts forward from the impact of Jonas' hand. Matteo sympathises.

“Dude, already told him,” Jonas says. “He's got PE with the general too.”

Carlos and Abdi let out loud groans, and Matteo can't help but wince at the thought of subjecting himself to PE class voluntarily. He can only assume David's PE classes were less punishing at whatever school he came from.

“Shit, bro,” Carlos says. “Can't help you there. You're on your own. I'm Carlos, by the way.”

David accepts his outstretched fist for a fist bump too and then gives a small, casual shrug. “That's okay. I've got some people in PE.”

“Oh my god, Jonas,” Abdi complains. “You brought us a new friend and now he's going to ditch us in a week for people who take PE voluntarily. And I like him too.”

Jonas rolls his eyes, and David looks at Abdi like he can't believe what he's hearing. Matteo sympathises with that too. He's known Abdi for a good while, and he still can't always believe the things coming out of his mouth. But he's with Abdi on this one. He hopes David will stick around, even if the mere acknowledgement of that thought makes his cheeks heat.

“Give the man some time to come to a decision,” Jonas says, and then grabs Matteo by the shoulder, giving him a little shake. “This one's Matteo, by the way. He's always the life of the party.”

Carlos and Abdi are practically braying with laughter at the comment and Jonas ruffles Matteo's hair as he says it, sarcasm loud and clear enough that Matteo's pretty sure David couldn't have missed it. He can feel his face go hotter as he ducks out from under Jonas' hand, glad for the few seconds he can hide behind his hair and hands as he tries to get his hair back to a semblance of order – or at least a semblance of comfortable disorder.

When he looks back up, David is looking down at him, brown eyes assessing and calm. He offers a nod.

“Hi.”

Matteo swallows heavily, eyes wide, and nods back. “Uh, hi.”

For a moment it's like the whole world stands still, suspended in that moment with them and the breath Matteo can't quite seem to take.

David isn't looking away from him, eyes locked on Matteo's, and Matteo's whole body somehow feels like it's waking up under that gaze. Like a flower opening its petals as sunshine touches it. No one is saying anything and Matteo doesn't know how to break whatever is happening. He doesn't even know if he's actually been staring into David's eyes for half an eternity or if his perception of time is fucked by the rapid beating of his heart.

"Well, anyway," Carlos finally interrupts. "You should totally come to my birthday party, bro."

"Uh," David says, and looks over at Carlos, cutting Matteo loose from one second to the next.

Matteo slumps, heartbeat still fast, and though he feels like a haphazard heap of limbs rather than a real human, there's something agitated thrumming under his skin. His gaze skitters away to the side and his cheeks warm again, a shrill panic ringing in his head, though he can't tell if it's telling him to never look at David again or to never look away.

It doesn't really matter anyway, because he finds himself looking back at David only a heartbeat later like he can't help himself, balling his itching fingers into fists and stuffing them into the pockets of his jacket. David's nose ring glints in the harsh light of the fluorescents and apparently Matteo is part magpie, transfixed and eager to get closer.

"No pressure about gifts or anything, these assholes never get me anything either," Carlos goes on with a grin, slapping Abdi on the back jovially when he makes a protesting noise. "It's just a low-key thing. Come! It'll be fun!"

David smiles a little, and Matteo feels his stomach swoop. Fuck, what a smile.

"Yeah, I'll think about it,” he says. “Thanks."

Carlos grins and Jonas is already pulling his phone out.

"I'll just add you to the group chat, then you have all our numbers. Cool?"

"Ok. Cool," David says.

Matteo feels his phone buzz against his curled up hand and pulls it out to add David to his contacts. It feels wrong to have his number, somehow, even though David said it was fine. Matteo's thumb hovers over the 'save' icon and he glances up at David furtively. There's nothing on his face that gives anything away, just the cool, slightly detached placidness from earlier when he'd just walked up to them.

Matteo looks back down at his phone and presses his thumb down and now there it is. David's contact information. Bland and impersonal, just his name and number, no emojis, no contact photo, no shared history.

But it's there and that fact alone makes Matteo bite down on the inside of his lip and stuff his phone and hands back into his pockets so he doesn't squirm in his seat.

He's never looked at a boy and felt his insides turn to mush but also had his number in his phone. And he still wouldn't, if it weren't for his friends' determination to be said boy's friends too. He knows it doesn't mean anything, but it's a reality he's never had to live with before and somehow it makes him feel shakier than he thought it would – if he'd really thought about it happening at all.

He doesn't know what to do with this, and it's only that thought that makes him realise that he wants to do something. The itching in his limbs, the alarm in his head, the way his skin feels too tight for his body when David looks at him – it's all because every fibre of Matteo's being wants to do something. To try something.

He can't remember the last time he felt like this. So… awake.

“Bro, aren't you sitting down?” Abdi asks, looking up at David guilelessly and taking a huge bite out of his sandwich.

Matteo looks up at him too, but this time so do Carlos and Jonas, and David shoves his hands back into the pockets of his jogging pants.

“Uh, no, sorry. I have to go get some stuff from my locker for my next class. Thanks for the invite though.”

“Uh, me too, actually,” Matteo says, seeing an opportunity to sneak off without suspicion and get just a moment alone to gather himself and grabbing it with both hands.

“Prepared for class?” Jonas teases, eyes twinkling above a small grin. “Turning over a new leaf, Luigi?”

Matteo rolls his eyes. “El profesor already hates my guts.”

“For real though, dude, why didn't you just take Italian?” Abdi asks, for probably the 200th time.

It's a fair question, one that Matteo asks of his past self often enough, but he knows the answer. He'd wanted a challenge, and he'd wanted a fourth language, liked the idea of being one step ahead of everybody else for once.

He shrugs and unfolds from the bench, grabbing his backpack to hoist up onto his shoulder. “Too easy.”

Abdi shakes his head. “Your funeral, bro.”

Matteo sighs heavily, because, yeah. It really will be.

“Well, see you later, yeah?” Jonas says. “Bio?”

“Sure. Don't worry, I won't leave you alone with the scary science,” he teases, stumbling a little when Jonas gives him a shove in the side for it.

When he straightens again, he sees David put his hand back into his pocket, like he'd reached out to steady him. Matteo looks up at his eyes, and David looks away, a tick in his jaw as he swallows.

“Okay, well. Bye,” David says and Matteo echoes his greeting with a lazy nod of his head at his friends.

He figures he's going to turn around and walk to his locker by himself, get a few minutes to just breathe before the bell rings, but then David turns into the same direction and after a few halting steps almost-but-not-quite next to each other, they share a look again.

“Is your locker, um…?” Matteo asks, vaguely gesturing down the hall to where his own locker is.

David huffs a breath that may be a laugh if the shadow of a smile on his face is anything to go by. Matteo's heart thunders in his chest.

“Uh, yeah.”

“Okay, well, then,” Matteo says, and affects a bow, gesturing down the hall. He has no idea what he's doing, oh god. “Age before beauty.”

David makes another one of those maybe-a-laugh sounds. “You have no idea how old I am.”

“No, but I do own a mirror,” Matteo finds himself teasing, and this time David's definitely grinning brightly at him.

“Wow,” is all he says, sounding utterly unimpressed.

Matteo nods gravely, attempting to strike some sort of pose. “I know.”

David's still grinning, even as he rolls his eyes and walks off. Matteo falls into step with him without thought.

“So, how old are you?” he asks.

“Seventeen,” David says, and glances over at him expectantly. “You?”

Matteo winces exaggeratedly. “Eighteen.”

David's eyebrows hike up his forehead, his smile turning smug. “Guess I'm not 'age' after all.”

Matteo's eyes flick over his face, from his warm eyes to the steady slope of his nose, the curl of his lips. The smooth skin everywhere. He's definitely beauty, but Matteo already knew that. Matteo also absolutely cannot say that.

“You'll get there,” he says instead and reaches out to pat his shoulder, probably coming off more hesitant than mock-consoling.

David grins anyway, taking Matteo's joke, and then turns down towards a row of lockers that's coincidentally the same one as Matteo's, though his seems to be further down. They don't say anything as they gather their things and Matteo uses the open door of his locker as a shield to hide his face and take a deep, shaky breath, counting down from twenty in his head.

He grabs his Spanish and biology books and closes the locker door again, wondering if he can prod David into definitely agreeing to come to Carlos' party, even if it's definitely not going to be low-key in anyway. The itching in his fingertips hasn't gone away as such, but there's a different kind of energy to it now that he's had something like a conversation with David.

“So, um,” he says, turning from his locker over to where David is closing his and looking up and over at Matteo curiously. He doesn't get any further when they're interrupted by a chirpy “hi!” coming from behind Matteo.

David's eyes slide from him to the person belonging to the voice Matteo definitely recognises. His heart is already slumping as he turns around to see Leonie walking up to them and past Matteo, Sara a few steps behind her as always. David accepts the hug Leonie offers easily, and Matteo clutches his books to his chest tightly when Sara smiles at him.

“Hi,” she says too, though it's a little more softly than Leonie.

He swallows and nods at her. “Hey.”

“Ready for PE?” he hears Leonie ask, and when he looks back at David he realises what he got out of his locker is a sports bag. Probably that means the 'people' he has in Advanced PE are Leonie and Sara.

Well, fuck.

“Yeah,” David says, and jokingly adds. “Though I don't think anyone can ever really be ready for that.”

Leonie and Sara laugh, and Leonie groans exaggeratedly.

“I swear, Neuhaus is trying to kill us,” she moans.

David nods. “Probably trying to filter out the weak ones,” he teases, poking Leonie in the side.

Leonie squeaks an offended noise, and David and Sara both laugh.

“Hey, are you guys going to Carlos' party on the weekend?” Leonie asks then, looking from David to Matteo and then to Sara.

Matteo swallows heavily, something ugly curling in his gut.

“Yeah,” he says with a shrug. Obviously he's going. He can't exactly ditch one of his best friends.

Leonie smiles at Sara and Matteo's insides twist a little more when Sara ducks her head.

David looks over from Sara to Matteo and he shrugs too. “Probably.”

It makes Matteo's insides twist in the other direction, and he can't decide if he hopes David can see the way it curls his lips into a small smile or not.

“Cool,” Leonie says. “We should go together.”

“Uh,” David says, gaze bouncing from Matteo back to her. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

Leonie beams up at him and before Matteo has a chance to really feel anything about the way it makes him want to tug David away from her, the bell rings, effectively tearing through the moment.

“Fuck, let's go,” Leonie says immediately. “We still have to get changed.”

They all shuffle into motion, and David gives Matteo a look as he and Leonie pass him. Matteo can't read it, but he can't not return it either.

“Bye, Matteo,” Sara says, smiling at him and tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear before turning around to follow after the other two.

Matteo doesn't say anything, watching them go for a few seconds.

Sara turns around, and smiles when she sees Matteo watching them, lifting a hand to wiggle her fingers at him in a little wave. Matteo half-heartedly lifts his free hand and then turns away, walking off in the opposite direction. So much for the moments of quiet to sort out his head.

He opens his book the moment he slumps down into a seat in class, tries to make his mind focus on Spanish instead of the rush of his blood in his ears and the beating of his heart. His phone buzzes in his pocket again and he pulls it out automatically, heart tripping over itself when it shows a message from David. Not in the group chat, just for him.

It's a screenshot of Matteo's contact information in David's phone, his number and his name, almost exactly as bland as David's in Matteo's own, but beside his name David has added the old man emoji.

Matteo snorts a quiet laugh to himself and pulls David's contact info up without thought, adding the glitter emoji to it. He gets as far as taking the screenshot, but when the notification pops up at the top of his screen, asking if he wants to edit, share, or delete it, he hesitates, swallowing his heart back down, and then presses delete.

He taps back over into the message thread with David and sends him the laughing emoji with tears in its eyes and then silences his phone, shoving it back into the pocket of his jacket. He tries to ignore how unusually heavy it feels, regret already bitter on his tongue when el profesor strides in, closing the door to the classroom loudly enough to draw attention.

“Buenos días. Hoy trabajamos en grupos,” he announces, and the girl who sat down beside Matteo slumps in her seat and whispers a quiet “fuck”.

Matteo whole-heartedly agrees.

Fuck.


	3. February 2019 - II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matteo and Sara have a conversation. It's not what Sara wanted.

_**February 2019** _

Matteo honestly doesn’t understand how people can keep throwing parties. Every other weekend someone intends to host a “lowkey” get-together, and it always escalates into a full-on party. By now, if you ask Matteo, people should have realised that their group of friends is apparently incapable of doing anything that’s lowkey. They should really stop trying.

David laughs when Matteo voices this opinion, the two of them whiling away a free period in between classes. The others are all in their own classes, and while only a few weeks ago Matteo would have found himself a quiet corner and hunkered down by himself, maybe smoked a little something, plugged in his headphones and vanished into the music, he now spends it with David.

David has a notebook open on his criss-crossed legs. He’d fully intended to use this time between classes to study, but so far all they’ve done is chatted idly about whatever comes to mind. Matteo hasn’t even really thought about smoking anything, not unless David would want to share.

Now there’s an idea. Not an idea for right now, probably, because they’re sat out in the open and there are only about fifteen minutes left of this free period, so Matteo doesn’t think he can convince David to sneak off with him, but… some other time. Maybe.

“It’s stress relief,” David argues. “Let them have fun.”

“It’s not stress relief, it’s _stress_ ,” Matteo insists.

David laughs again. “You’re such a party pooper.”

Matteo isn’t, actually, not really. It’s just that he’s always tired these days. He hardly sleeps at night, tossing and turning while he listens to the loud silence echoing all through the house. It’s strange - it’s not like there’s meant to be any noise at night, but recently, with his mother so quiet during the day as well, the quiet at night has somehow become too quiet. He only has a chance at sleep if he puts on his headphones and pumps some sort of music into his ears, numbing his brain and drowning out his thoughts.

He hates his father for just fucking off, for giving up on his wife – on his family – and bailing to Italy, but he honestly doesn’t know what to do anymore either.

His mum isn’t just having a few bad days here and there anymore, she’s barely a step up from catatonic most days. She doesn’t have the energy to do much more than eat what Matteo brings her, occasionally letting him coax her into the bath. Sometimes she’ll shower, but twice now Matteo has had to sit her in the bathtub and wipe her down with a facecloth, trying all the while not to cry.

Those days were the worst. On those days she seems to look right through him, barely reacts to anything he says unless they’re direct commands, and he ended them both curled up on the floor, leaning against his bed and breathing very deliberately with his head between his knees, trying to will the dizziness away.

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I just don’t find them very relaxing.”

David doesn’t say anything immediately, just looks at Matteo in that way he has, calm and considering. Then he smiles, and shrugs.

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” he says, kindly not pointing out that Matteo spends most of his time at parties either attached to a bottle or smoking weed anyway.

Matteo sighs. “Well, if I don’t go the boys’ll worry.”

David tilts his head a little, reaching up with one hand to rub at the side of his neck. “And you don’t want them to.”

“I don’t want to explain,” Matteo mumbles, ducking his head and dropping David’s gaze. He’s pretty sure David won’t make him explain, that’s not really who David is. He doesn’t offer much about himself, but he also never asks for more than anyone else is willing to give. Maybe, if he were the one to ask, Matteo wouldn’t mind explaining though.

“I get that,” David says, equally quietly. “Maybe think of a good excuse for showing up late? Or leaving early?”

Matteo grimaces a little and shrugs one shoulder. “Tried it.”

David laughs again. “They are very insistent about parties, your friends.”

It’s another thing David does. He always draws this invisible line between himself and everyone else, like he’s got one foot already out the proverbial door. Not that Matteo can fault him, he won’t miss most of the people in this school either, but it stings a little that that extends to the boys and him, mostly because… well. Matteo is definitely going to miss David if he cuts them off once school is done.

“They're your friends too, you know,” he points out. “You can’t absolve yourself from this.”

David grimaces playfully. “Damn. You sure?”

“They’re pretty stubborn like that,” Matteo says, not entirely without affection. “They’ve basically adopted you. Like a stray puppy.”

David snorts. “Thanks. That makes me feel so great.”

He’s got a small smile on his lips though when he looks back down at his open notebook like he’s just remembered it’s there, shifting a little where he sits, trying to get comfortable. Maybe it does actually make him feel just a bit good. He’s never said why exactly he transferred in the middle of year 12, but it’s probably not the happiest of stories. If it were, David would probably be less reluctant to share any of it. Or of anything else.

They lapse into silence, David studiously looking down at his open notebook and schooling his face back into an expression of neutrality, and Matteo watching him do it.

"Sara is looking forward to seeing you at the party," David says when he looks back up.

Matteo's gaze cuts away from David's the moment their eyes meet, the mention of Sara ringing loudly in his ears and making it hard to swallow. The other boys ask him about Sara all the time, about the way she seems to seek him out, drags him onto the dance floor of every party and never takes no for an answer. The way she puts her arms around his neck, obviously waiting for him to close the distance between them.

David hardly ever does. When he does bring Sara up it's usually in the context of something that happened in PE, something she told him, just normal friend stuff.

The others have taken that to mean that David's just as invested in the idea of Matteo and Sara together, but Matteo's not so convinced. David never seems to say those things to Matteo specifically, never pushes for him to comment on the whole Sara situation.

Until now.

He makes a non-committal noise and slumps further down the wall he's leaning against, his chin almost coming down far enough to touch his chest.

“I think she has a crush on you,” David goes on, voice and expression both careful, like he's worried saying it out loud will spook Matteo.

Matteo's fingers curl up tightly where he's stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. It's not like this is news, really. There's got to be a reason for her persistence after all, and it's certainly not anything that Matteo's done. It's still not something anyone's ever said out loud quite like that, and Matteo has absolutely no idea what to do with that idea. He never meant to hurt Sara, but he's pretty sure at this point it's inevitable.

He knows he's been letting her circle him for too long to just dismiss it without comment. He thought if he let a girl flirt with him a little, if he dragged it out, maybe let people think he liked her and was being cautious, then the boys would stop needling him about how he never hooks up with anyone, why he's so picky and all that shit.

Instead they just started needling him about other shit; have they hooked up yet, has he touched her boobs yet, are they officially a thing yet.

It hasn't made things easier at all, and now he's let it go on so long that Sara probably thinks he's been cautious because he likes her back as well. So now he probably can't just avoid her and hope whatever she sees in him is paper thin and will go away by itself.

He shrugs.

“Well, I don't know for sure,” David says then, airy and light, and the change in his tone is so sudden it makes Matteo look up at him.

David smiles and rolls his eyes at him. “They make sure not to tell me anything too scandalous now that we're, uh…” He breaks off, gestures vaguely between them like that'll better express what he can't seem to put into words. Finally, he shrugs and says, “Like, hanging out. Sometimes.”

Matteo wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and yell at him that they're friends. That Matteo's here to stay if David wants him to.

Instead he grins at him.

“Girls,” he says.

David snorts a laugh. “Boys aren't any better. I've seen Carlos panic around Kiki. And don't even get me started on the weird shit that comes out of Abdi's mouth when he tries to talk to Sam.”

“Fuck, you're right,” Matteo says, grin brightening. It's a lot easier to talk about the others' romantic endeavours than about the one he's supposed to be undertaking. “They are pretty hopeless.”

David nods, a grave expression on his face, pressing his lips together to stave off another grin. But it's like David's face was made for smiling; he can never hold them back for long. It spreads over his face quickly, bright and mischievous, making his eyes sparkle.

“Also pretty funny to watch though.”

Matteo laughs. Yes. Yes, it is.

“Wouldn't want to miss out on that,” David adds, and Matteo recognises an attempt at coaxing him to come to a party when he sees one.

He rolls his eyes. “No, I guess I wouldn't.”

David nods to himself, seemingly satisfied, and looks back down at his notebook, turning a page. Maybe he has actually been paying some attention to it after all.

“Just talk to Sara, if you don't...” David says quietly, chancing a look up at Matteo without lifting his head again. It's only a quick thing, but it draws Matteo's focus to David's eyelashes and the shape of his lips and the slight rosy flush that seems to almost always sit in David's cheeks.

Matteo sighs. Whatever it is that David suspects he 'doesn't' about Sara, it's definitely true.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. At least David doesn't seem to judge Matteo for it.

They sit in silence until the bell rings, and then part ways with slightly awkward nods and waves, half-expressed plans made of “see you around”, the vulnerability of the previous conversation throwing them off their usual beat of teasing banter. Still, David smiles at Matteo before he turns around to head off to his next class.

Matteo watches him go for a second or two and then turns around too.

At least it's Friday. At least he only has one more class to deal with this week. He's not sure the party tomorrow is any better, but he's just not going to think about that for now. If he hopes to deal with any of this, it's going to have to be one thing at a time. One foot in front of the other, one class at a time, one trek home, one mother who manages to eat two helpings of the simple pasta he whipped up that night.

It's almost enough to feel like relief.

Still, one thing at a time doesn't put the future off indefinitely, and so he finds himself at a party at Mia's flatshare anyway, unsuccessfully trying to stay out of Sara's way. She seems to have decided that she's had enough of the will-they-won't-they dance he's made them do until now, and even though Matteo knows he can't go on as he's been, he doesn't really want to say anything here. At a crowded party with an unwitting audience no matter where they steal away to. And he doesn't exactly want to drag her into an unoccupied bedroom only to tell her that, actually, he's not into her like that either.

So he let her wrap her arms around his neck again as they dance, and when she pulls him closer, he dodges her and pulls her so close she has to put her head on his shoulder instead of accepting the kiss she clearly meant to give him. She doesn't complain, sways like that with him for the rest of the song while Matteo frantically tries to think of a way out of this that won't cause a scene. In the periphery of his vision he can see Abdi and Carlos slapping at each other with beaming grins, clearly watching them. They're probably waiting for this kiss as much as Sara is, and Matteo feels his stomach roll and the back of his neck prickle with heat.

He can feel Sara pull back again, and there's no way Matteo can keep her where she is without being obvious about it. He can't think of anything to get out of this, the music loud and the blood rushing in his ears louder still, can't _think_ \---

She kisses him.

Like someone flicked a switch in his brain every noise drops away, and even though he doesn't close his eyes, she's suddenly all he registers. He can't feel his body except where her mouth presses against his, frozen under her touch, every muscle in his body locking tight. She doesn't let that deter her either, kissing him until he kisses her back, haltingly, because he can't think of anything else to do.

It isn't even bad.

Her lips are… soft, he supposes. She's probably a good kisser, as far as Matteo and his non-existent experience can tell. She's persistent, but not pushy, which Matteo appreciates. Neither of them are drooling all over each other. It's not terrible.

It's just… boring.

Even through the ringing in his ears and the panic that he never wanted this to happen, he registers with a sort of hysterical relief that he really just isn't into this at all. He can't help it. She's not for him. No girl is ever going to be for him.

Sara pulls back and giggles a little, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear, and Matteo takes a deep breath, feeling dizzy when all the noise of the party suddenly comes rushing back in. She bites her lip as she looks at him, blushing prettily and ducking back in for another kiss. Matteo puts a hand on her shoulder to stop her and grabs her by the wrist instead, pulling her through the crowd after all. He hears someone whoop loudly and Sara wriggles her hand free from his grip to lace their fingers together. The only reason Matteo doesn't pull away is because he needs her to follow him out of this room, away from what feels like a thousand eyes watching their every move, making his heart squeeze tight and his breathing stutter. He's watching his feet because he feels like he'll trip if he doesn't, and also like he'll faint if he has to look at anyone right now.

Sara giggles again when Matteo closes the door of someone's bedroom behind them, leaning against it to make sure that no one can follow them inside even though he's 120% sure no one would, given that every single person out there probably thinks they came in here to fuck.

He can't breathe. The noise of the party is quieter through the door, but the darkness of the room is disconcerting.

“Not shy anymore?” Sara teases and he feels more than sees her come closer and slip back into his personal space.

He pushes her away harder than he meant to and she stumbles, making a surprised noise when the back of her legs hit the bed and she falls down onto it, catching herself. She does seem to have realised it wasn't an impatiently passionate push towards more though.

“Matteo?” she asks, her voice a little hesitant. He can just make her out where she's sitting on the bed as his eyes adjust to the darkness, light spilling in through the window from the street lamps outside.

“I'm sorry,” he says, nails biting into his palms where he curls his fists and it helps a bit, the bright sting of it. Gives him something to focus on. “You're a really sweet girl...”

She obviously hears the 'but' at the end of that sentence loud and clear, even if Matteo doesn't know how to finish it. Her face falls along with her shoulders, her gaze falling away from his as she drops her chin to stare down at the floor.

“Oh.”

“I'm sorry,” he repeats. “I just don't want to-- I don't think it'd be fair to you--”

“You don't have to explain,” she cuts him off, voice small and tight like, fuck. Like she's about to cry. “It's okay, I get it.”

He doesn't think she does – hopes she doesn't, in fact. But he doesn't actually have any kind of explanation to offer her, not one he wants to give, so he takes the out. “I'm really sorry.”

She huffs a bitter sounding laugh. “Yeah.”

The silence that falls between them is thick and awkward, but Matteo's heart races a little less anyway, and he finds it's easier to breathe.

“Can you just leave me alone for a bit?” she asks, staring stubbornly at the floor and holding herself very still.

The idea of going back outside and being seen slinking away is terrifying, but he figures he owes her this.

“Yeah, sorry,” he says and shuffles over to the door, hesitating for only a moment with his hand on the handle before slipping back outside.

He blinks against the sudden light and tries not to flinch at the noise level, keeping his eyes cast down onto the floor so he doesn't risk catching anyone's eye as he slips further down the corridor, keeping to the walls and making his way to the front door quickly. He digs through the pile of jackets on the hooks there quickly, heartbeat picking back up with every second it takes to find his own. He needs to get out now.

The floorboards creak under someone's footsteps, and Matteo would ignore them, except they very clearly stop in the hallway and so he looks up, coming face to face with Leonie and David. They're both frowning at him, but while Leonie looks less than pleased with him, he's pretty sure that frown on David's face is one of concern.

“Where's Sara?” Leonie asks, her voice as sharp as the expression on her face.

Matteo looks down the hallway towards the bedroom where he left her reflexively, and that seems to be answer enough for her.

“You're an asshole, Florenzi,” she spits and then whirls around, stalking off to find her friend.

Matteo swallows heavily and doesn't dare look back at David, instead returning to finding his jacket. The floorboards creak again and then David hovers next to him, reaching into the pile of jackets to help.

“Are you okay?” he asks, quietly.

Matteo gives a tight, curt nod. He doesn't really trust himself to speak right now, not sure what would come out if he tried.

David finds his jacket and hands it to him gently.

“I'll tell the others you weren't feeling well,” he offers. “If you want to be alone?”

Matteo swallows harder against the sudden lump in his throat. He's not sure, actually, but he nods again anyway.

“Okay,” David says and steps back.

Matteo slips into his jacket, turns around, and leaves.

There's the rest of a blunt in his jacket pocket that he lights as soon as he's outside, keeping it between his lips as he digs for his headphones. He walks for two stops before he gets on the bus and doesn't take the headphones off once, even when he gets home. He can't deal with the silence of the house today, can't deal with what it means.

He peeks into his mother's bedroom just to make sure she's sleeping and to assuage the gnawing in the pit of his stomach, and then makes his way to his own bedroom. He slips his phone down through the collar of his t-shirt so he won't have to take the headphones off to get undressed and slips under the covers with the music still a little too loud in his ears. It's better than the alternative, and so he only pulls the duvet up high, only his nose peeking out so he can breathe, and rolls over to face the wall, hunched back towards the room like he can pretend there's nothing in this world except him and this bed.

He thinks of Sara's hunched form in someone else's bedroom, of Leonie's anger, and David's gentle concern, but then squeezes his eyes shut more tightly and stubbornly wills himself to think of nothing at all until he slips into mercifully dreamless sleep.


	4. March 2019 - III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Matteo and David have a conversation and reveal some things.

_** March 2019 ** _

“Wait, where are you going?” Matteo asks when David walks past their bus stop. What with Matteo’s new flatshare lying along the same bus line as David’s place, they’ve been taking the bus together both to and after school whenever they can make it work. In the morning that means whenever Matteo makes it out of bed on time, in the afternoons it’s simply a matter of when their days finish.

David throws him a grin over his shoulder but doesn’t stop walking.

“It’s two stops, Matteo, come on. The sun’s out! I want to walk!”

Matteo stares after him with wide, disbelieving eyes for another heartbeat or two and then sighs deeply before he hikes his backpack up higher onto his shoulder and hurries to catch up with him.

“You’re an alien,” he grumbles when he falls into step beside David. It really isn’t very far at all, and Matteo knows they’ll walk the distance in probably less than fifteen minutes, but despite the fact that Matteo doesn’t actually have a bus pass, he’s been taking the bus anyway. He’s really not a big walker. Or mover of any kind.

David grins brightly. “Exercise is good for you. And this is only walking for a bit. Soak up some sunshine! You might actually smile!”

Matteo rolls his eyes but can’t help the grin that spreads over his face. “Soak up some sunshine, Matteo. Drink more water, Matteo. What am I, a house plant?”

David laughs, eyes and piercing shining in the golden late afternoon sun

“An ambulatory one? Like an ent?” he suggests.

“I don’t think ents would appreciate being called house plants, ambulatory or otherwise,” Matteo says. He can’t imagine someone like Treebeard being best pleased with being compared to a potted plant. Frankly, he can’t imagine he’d be best pleased with the concept of a potted plant in the first place. And though there’d probably be worse lives to live than the one of an ent, given the choice Matteo would much rather be a human.

David hums, seemingly taking this into consideration.

“That’s true,” he concedes. “Well, if I’m an alien, then who says you’re not?”

Matteo catches his gaze and grins. “Photosynthesising aliens?”

“Yeah, who says alien organisms don’t work completely differently? I mean, they’re from different planets with totally different living conditions. Makes more sense to assume they’re different somehow, right?” David says.

“Cool. I can be an alien,” Matteo acquiesces easily. He feels enough like one some days anyway. “Are we from the same planet then?”

David glances at him and then away again, lifting a hand to rub at his neck but then stuffing it into the pocket of his jacket instead.

Matteo’s pulse suddenly skyrockets, face warming with more than the mid-March sun. He didn’t really mean for it to sound as deep as it turned out. He was only playing along with the joke, but now the idea of that – of David and him being the same, in some unknowable, foreign but familiar way – makes his blood bubble like champagne.

“Yeah, maybe,” David says without looking at Matteo.

Matteo ducks his head, almost glad that David isn’t looking at him because he can’t bite back the grin that’s pulling at the corners of his mouth, and he doesn’t even want to know how red his face has turned.

“So, how is studying going?” David asks, changing the topic briskly. “Amira hasn’t killed you yet, so I’m assuming it’s okay.”

Matteo groans and lets his whole body slump.

“I don’t remember why I picked any of the intensive courses that I did. I hate them all,” he complains. “And Amira probably just hasn’t figured out the perfect way to murder me and get away with it yet.”

David laughs at him. “Amira is too good a person to murder anyone, so you’re probably safe.”

“Yeah,” Matteo mumbles. He kicks at a pebble and watches it skitter off the pavement and get run over by a car. “I don’t know, I just-- she’s brilliant and I’m so far behind her that I just slow her down. And it frustrates her that I don’t get any of the things she talks about and it just makes me feel… stupid.”

He huffs a sigh and shrugs, stubbornly staring straight ahead. Fuck, he’s not even sure why he said that. It’s not like it’s not true, but he never meant to say it out loud.

David makes a considering humming sound.

“That sucks,” he says. “Is it the material you’re struggling with, or-- because I tried to study with Amira once and the way she does things just does not work for me. She’s super smart, sure, but we just don’t click that way.”

Matteo shrugs. “I don’t know.”

David makes another one of those humming sounds. “Maybe you can work out a system by yourself. To prepare or something.”

Matteo barely bites back a groan and sighs instead.

“Yeah,” he says. “I should do something like that.”

If only he could ever focus, but even when he tries, sits at his desk and stares down at his biology or Spanish or history notes, it’s like his brain is already full and there’s no way he can cram anything else in there. It doesn’t help that he doesn’t really care about any of those subjects and that studying in itself is already an incredibly dull activity.

“You’ll figure it out,” David says and bumps their shoulders together. “You’re not actually stupid.”

Matteo swallows heavily and chances a glance at David, smiling a little at the expression on David’s face that clearly says that he’s ready to fight Matteo on this if he should try to contradict him. Matteo’s not about to try. Instead, he bumps David’s shoulder back in thanks and lets them lapse into silence again.

It’s nice, how he doesn’t have to speak when he’s with David. It’s not something he’s used to, being in someone’s quiet company and enjoying it. Even with Jonas there’s always something. Jonas doesn’t need Matteo to always answer back, but he’ll tell Matteo stories about his day or his thoughts or anything that comes up. And with his mother the quiet was hardly ever peaceful, just oppressive.

David pulls out his phone to check the timetable when they reach the bus stop closest to Matteo’s place and Matteo bites his lip. He doesn’t want David to go yet.

“Do you want to stay for a bit?” he offers.

“I really do have to study too,” David says, his face a little apprehensive.

“We can do that,” Matteo says immediately and at David’s doubtful expression adds, “I promise.”

He knows they don’t exactly have a good track record of spending their free periods together to actually study, but Matteo can be quiet as a mouse if that’s what David needs him to be. He just doesn’t really want to be by himself right now. And maybe Hans is home, or Linn, or Mia, but it wouldn’t be the same. None of them are David. None of them just let Matteo be the way David does.

“I really mean it, Matteo,” David says.

Matteo’s pretty sure that means he wins, but tries to keep the serious expression. “Me too. We’ll study.”

David sighs a small sigh, and then allows an equally small smile to take over his face. “Okay. But I’m holding you to that.”

Matteo nods vigorously and then takes a step back before David can change his mind. “Come.”

David comes, falling back into step with Matteo. They stay quiet for the short trek over to the flatshare, and Matteo tries to quiet the giddy butterflies that begin tickling at his stomach too.

“Hello?” he calls when he opens the door and steps aside to let David in behind him. He’s not in the habit of announcing himself, but usually he just sneaks into his room and closes that door. He hasn’t brought anyone over yet, not even Jonas or the boys, and he doesn’t trust Hans not to make it a whole thing, even if jokingly.

There’s no answer though, which means they’re either alone, or whoever else is here is asleep or uninterested in company at least. It’s good enough.

When he turns around, David has slipped his shoes off and is pulling the beanie off his hair, running a hand through it to get it to sit right. Matteo halts for a moment, caught in the way the warm glow of the hallway light looks on David’s skin, the curiosity in David’s eyes as he looks around.

“Um, we can go to the kitchen, or the living room, or my room,” Matteo says, and tries to remember what state of chaos he’s left his room in. There’s no way the bed is made, but he doesn’t think there are too many dirty dishes around. Hans complained about the lack of mugs just the other day and he’s pretty sure he took that as a sign to bring all the things piling up in his room back to the kitchen.

David looks at him with wide eyes, like he didn’t expect having to make that decision. “Kitchen?”

“Sure,” Matteo says and gestures at the doorway leading off from the hall right into the kitchen. David takes his jacket off and follows Matteo’s lead, hanging it on top of Matteo’s when he hangs it on one of the hooks by the door. He waits for Matteo to lead the way into the kitchen too, and Matteo turns on the light as he goes automatically. The sun doesn’t set quite so early anymore, but it’s still going to get greyer pretty soon. It’s not exactly conducive to studying if you can’t even see your own notes. He knows that much.

“Do you want anything? Water? Tea? We probably have coffee somewhere?”

“Just water, thanks,” David says and shuffles over to the table by the windows, sliding up onto one of the high stools carefully.

Matteo’s fingers are icy cold when he grabs them two glasses from the cupboard and fills them with water, setting them down on the table before he goes to grab his own backpack to take out his Spanish stuff. He figures he should start with that, since it’s the exam that makes him the most nervous. History and biology will just be a question of whether or not he can cram enough facts into his head to pass, but Spanish means he has to understand things and express them and all of that jazz.

He really should have taken Italian, then at least the language part of the whole thing would be easy.

David watches him unpack his stuff with a slight smile like he genuinely didn’t expect Matteo to actually mean it when he said they’d study.

“What?” Matteo asks, lifting a challenging eyebrow at David.

David huffs a small laugh and shakes his head, reaching for his own backpack. “Nothing.”

“Mm. Sure,” Matteo says. “You didn’t think I meant it, did you.”

David shrugs a shoulder delicately and pulls a truly angelic face. “Well, your track record in our free periods suggested otherwise…”

“Excuse me, but you’re there too!” Matteo blusters, making David laugh. “If you didn’t want me to distract you, all you had to do was say so.”

David shrugs again, but this time he’s looking down at his things before glancing back up at Matteo. “No, I don’t mind.”

Matteo ducks his head too to hide his own smile and then brings a finger up to his lips. “Shush. I need to study now.”

David rolls his eyes at him, but gamely mimes zipping his mouth shut.

Matteo tries his best, opening up his books and notes and trying to make sense of it all, but it’s like there’s a sort of static that takes over his brain every time he tries to do this, so after a good fifteen minutes of staring blankly at his sheets, turning pages over to seem like he’s doing something, he starts sneaking looks at David.

David actually does seem to know what he’s doing, and Matteo really did mean it when he promised to let him study, so he looks down at David’s notes and tries to figure out what his system is. He’s got a whole bunch of differently coloured marker pens, and Matteo assumes there’s some kind of colour coding that goes into that.

Matteo’s pretty sure he owns exactly one marker pen, but that doesn’t mean he can’t break his stuff down into different sections. For Spanish at least there’s the language part – the grammar and the vocab – and then there’s the literature part, and the history and general knowledge about the country part. If he could manage to make three piles like that at least, then maybe he’d have a better idea of what exactly it is he’s supposed to be doing.

The grammar and vocab as well as the history parts he’ll pretty much have to learn by heart. It’s really the literature that fucks him up the most. He tried to read the short stories and poems they talked about, but… well. He didn’t try very hard.

Piles, though. Piles he can do.

So he goes through his notes and tears pages out of his notebook to shuffle into piles, ignoring David when he looks up in alarm at the noise of paper tearing. He only watches for a moment or two before going back to his own material without comment anyway. It makes a warm little glow spread out in Matteo’s chest, somehow. David must have really meant what he’d said earlier.

Once his piles are done, he gets the rest of his notes from his room and then starts writing lists of all the things he knows are still only in the textbook but need to be added to the separate piles. He’s not about to tear the textbook up.

They work in silence like that for longer than Matteo would have thought before he looks up again. It’s gotten dark outside, and a quick glance at his phone tells him it’s inching into early evening now rather than late afternoon.

“Um, are you hungry?” he asks.

David looks up at him and his cheeks go a little red as his stomach makes a gurgling noise as though it, too, heard Matteo’s question.

Matteo grins. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Yeah, a little,” David says. “Do you have anything to eat?”

Matteo actually doesn’t know if he does, so he slides off his chair and steps over to their cupboards to check. He knows he doesn’t have anything in the fridge because he meant to go grocery shopping today but completely forgot, but there’s still some pasta in the pantry. There are tomatoes and onions out on the counter too, and Matteo’s pretty sure those belong to Mia and that Mia will not be home today. So he can just replace them tomorrow and she’ll be none the wiser.

“I can make us pasta,” he offers, holding up the package of pasta in one hand, and the tomatoes in the other.

David’s eyebrows shoot up on his forehead. “Really?”

Matteo shrugs. “Yeah. I’m Italian, man, it’s basically a requirement.”

“I don’t want to impose,” David says, fiddling with his pen.

“I need to eat too. It’s no problem,” Matteo waves him off and sets the tomatoes and pasta back down, reaching for a cutting board. “You can go back to studying, if you want. I’ll take a little break to make this.”

“Okay. Thanks,” David says. “I’ll let my sister know I’ll be home late.”

Matteo nods, and sets a pot with water on the stove, letting it come to a boil while he chops onion and crushes garlic and cuts up the tomatoes. It’s a welcome reprieve from studying, even though he’s happy he managed to get something done today that feels productive. He may not have memorised anything, but he has a plan of attack now, and he thinks he can do something similar for his other subjects too. Break it down into bite-sized pieces so it’s not quite so overwhelming.

When the pasta is done and dished up into two large bowls, David has cleared most of the table, his own things back in his bag and Matteo’s carefully piled to one side neatly and stacked in such a way that Matteo’s own pile-system has been preserved.

“You actually made pasta,” David says when Matteo sets the plates down, like even though he was right there when Matteo did, he somehow doubted the outcome.

“Uh, yeah. What did you think I was doing? Building a pipe bomb?” Matteo teases.

David rolls his eyes. “Shut up. I just didn’t know you could cook.”

Matteo sits back down opposite David and shrugs. “My mum taught me.”

Which is a little ironic, what with his dad being the Italian part of his family and where most of the recipes that his mum tried to teach him came from, but his dad was usually too busy at work for this kind of thing.

“It looks good,” David says, and grabs his fork.

"It is good," Matteo insists, stabbing at his own pasta. It's nothing fancy, but he knows that his pasta is fine. He's made it often enough that he could do it in his sleep and he hasn't received any complaints so far.

David too makes a short, pleased humming noise at the first taste and nods as he chews. He makes sure to swallow before he speaks. "Nice."

Matteo grins, and turns to his own plate. They eat in silence, the scratching of their forks against the plates and the quiet chewing noises that sometimes drive Matteo nuts and sometimes just feel homey the only sounds between them. Idly Matteo wonders when everybody else will come home, and if David will have left by then. Whether he wants to stay after dinner to study some more or maybe just hang out for a bit. He's glad he didn't have to spend the day by himself, thinks he wouldn't be feeling quite this pleasantly mellow if he had, but he wouldn't mind actually spending some time with David either.

He never did get around to offering him that joint, so maybe tonight is the night for that.

"This was really good," David says, scraping up as much of the rest of the sauce as he can with his last piece of pasta.

Matteo grins at him and lets the warmth of the compliment sink into his chest.

"You know what else is good?" he asks, and then answers his own question by miming taking a hit off a joint.

David laughs and rolls his eyes but Matteo just shrugs at him.

"You want?" he offers.

David mulls it over for a second or five and Matteo tries not to let the nerves bubble up to the surface and show on his face.

Then David shrugs too, nodding. "Okay."

"Okay," Matteo echoes with a smile and swipes up the last of his own pasta, slipping off the stool while he's still chewing, just because he's suddenly terrified David will change his mind. He grabs David's plate as well as his own and puts them both in the dishwasher so if Hans comes home he won't bother him about the dishes, and then looks back at David.

"We'll have to smoke in my room. Mia doesn't like it so much when I do it out here," Matteo says and rolls his eyes a little.

David hesitates for a moment, half out of his chair, but then sets his jaw and nods. Just once, curtly, before he follows Matteo into his room.

"Um, you wanna go on the balcony or the sofa?" Matteo asks when he turns on the light, casting a cursory glance around and noting with relief that he really did get rid of all the dirty dishes just the other day.

David glances from the sofa to the balcony and back, considering.

"Balcony? If that's okay with you?" he finally says.

Matteo shrugs his acquiescence. "Sure. We should grab our shoes and jackets then. I don't think it's gotten any warmer…"

David hums and nods and then follows Matteo back out into the hall to grab their stuff. They bundle up and Matteo grabs his stuff from the coffee table, along with the atrociously ugly ash tray Abdi gifted him some time ago. It's not quite empty, but there's nothing Matteo can do about that now, so he just busies himself with rolling the joint. When it's done, he lights it, taking a deep drag before offering it to David.

He's seen him smoke with them once or twice at a party, but he doesn't usually take many hits and Matteo doesn't think he's ever seen him inhale. He tries now and coughs predictably, cheeks going a little red with what's probably not just the cold.

"Don't rush it," Matteo says and takes it back. "Start smaller."

"Sure, weed guru," David drawls and Matteo chokes on his laugh, smoke puffing out of his mouth and nose like a faulty machine.

David laughs.

"Jerk," Matteo presses out in between coughs, and David plucks the joint out of his hand, taking another drag. He goes slower this time and manages not to choke. Matteo doesn't comment, but David rolls his eyes at him anyway.

"Can I ask you something?" David asks after he's taken another hit, and Matteo nods, watching him curiously as he takes the blunt back.

David seems to mull his question over for a bit more, looking out into the street below them.

"Sara," David starts, and Matteo instantly feels himself shrink.

Sara still looks away from him when they pass each other in the hall, which means Leonie still glares at him every time they do. And what with David's locker being right by his and David stubbornly hanging out with all of them, it's actually more often than it might otherwise be.

If David notices, he plows on anyway. "She's sweet, and you said you liked her. So why did you turn her down?"

"Are you asking for her?" Matteo asks back. He supposes he should have seen that coming. David is friends with them both, so it makes sense to go through him if she wants to know but doesn't want to ask Matteo herself.

But David shakes his head. "No, I'm just wondering. You're the only one with a girl after you, yet you turn her down."

He twists his mouth into a bit of a teasing smile, and Matteo responds with a somewhat weak smile of his own. The boys have been asking him the same question, tinged with the desperation of someone who can't get a date with the person they want. But David… David sounds a lot more like he's asking just because he wants to know. So maybe Matteo can actually tell him.

"She is a sweet girl. I liked hanging out with her," he concedes. He really did too. The few times they managed to actually have a conversation he found that Sara is funny, in her own way. She loves horses in a way that's almost a cliché but she's so upfront about it that it's just kind of cool. It's not that she doesn't care what anyone thinks about her, it's just that she cares more about doing things she really loves. Matteo kind of admires that.

“But?” David asks.

Matteo sighs. But. “But she’s a girl.”

Every word feels heavy on Matteo’s tongue, dragging his jackrabbit heart behind them up into his throat. Someone slams the door of a car somewhere and Matteo flinches, stares out at the street stubbornly but only sees the darkness, and takes a drag off the blunt, desperately wishing for the familiar haze to hide him from the world.

David doesn’t say anything for a while, just reaches over to take a hit of his own when Matteo’s done. He exhales a little more easily already, and then sighs.

“Yeah. I can see how that’d be a problem,” he says.

Matteo snorts a laugh without meaning to, and when he looks over at David, he sees an uncertain smile on his face that makes him laugh even more. Watching Matteo laugh sets David off too, and then suddenly they’re both laughing, and Matteo is putting the joint into the ashtray so it won’t fall from his slack fingers and down onto the street. He really doesn’t need to accidentally start a fire somehow.

“Yeah, it’s a fucking problem,” he agrees between laughter, and it sets David off again, making his laugh turn into hiccoughing giggles that has him press his hand to his mouth like he could stop it that way.

Matteo didn’t think the first thing he’d do after finally telling someone would be to laugh. He doesn’t think he would have, if it had been anyone else. But he likes this. He’s glad he told David. He’s glad David’s fumbling his response a little. He’s glad they’re obviously still okay.

“Yeah. So. That’s why,” he says when they’ve calmed down again and David smiles at him more gently when Matteo adds, “I haven’t told anyone yet.”

“I won’t say anything,” David promises and then looks out at the street and shifts his weight a little. “Anyway, I get it. I’m pan. I haven’t told anyone either, except my sister.”

“That’s the one that’s like bi but different colours, right?” Matteo asks, trying to quash the little thrill at the base of his spine at the thought that David is – at least theoretically – into boys. He’s a boy.

David grins and shakes his head, but agrees.

“Basically. I just like the word better, somehow,” he explains. “But, yeah. It means the same thing, more or less. That I don’t care about what gender someone is. I’m just into them.”

Matteo nods along and then smiles again. “Can’t relate, but it makes sense.”

David laughs and knocks their shoulders together. Matteo thinks he can almost feel the heat of his body even through both their jackets when they lean over the balustrade of the balcony again, staring out into the street, a little closer than they were before.

“Can I ask you something?” Matteo asks then, buoyed by the weightless feeling in his chest.

David nods and hums his agreement, eyeing Matteo curiously when he looks over at him.

“Why did you transfer so close to Abi?”

The smile slips off David’s face and he turns towards the night again, fixing some point in the distance that Matteo has no access to.

“I killed someone,” David says, before Matteo can try to take it back, tell him it doesn’t really matter.

Matteo can’t help the small huff of laughter.

“Stress with your parents?” he guesses. He’d know all about that.

“Yep,” David agrees, and then turns to grin at him, before schooling his face back into seriousness. “That’s why they had to go.”

Matteo rolls his eyes at him but lets it go. It stings a little, that David won’t trust him with whatever it is, but Matteo’s no stranger to secrets. Just because they laid one bare tonight doesn’t mean all the others have to follow.

“Hope you got rid of their bodies,” he says.

David laughs. “Obviously. I’m not an amateur.”

“You’re not? That’s kind of worrying.”

“Yeah. Maybe you should be careful out here on this balcony with me. A tragic accident might happen,” David mock-threatens, but he’s still smiling, so the effect is kind of ruined.

“That’s dark,” Matteo says. “And here I thought we were having a moment.”

“You know my secret now. You have to die,” David says nonchalantly.

“But you’re the one who told me!” Matteo protests.

David shrugs. “Tough luck.”

“Wow, okay. I think it’s time for you to go,” Matteo jokes, and then immediately wishes he could take that back too when it makes David dig through his pockets for his phone.

“Shit, I should get home actually.”

“Oh.”

“My sister will worry,” David explains.

Matteo nods. “You live with her?”

“Well, my parents are dead.”

“Right, right,” Matteo says and rolls his eyes with a smile.

David smiles too and then takes a step back, back towards Matteo’s room.

Matteo trails him into the kitchen and watches him grab his backpack, feeling oddly hollowed out at the thought of David leaving.

“Um, I had fun today,” he says when David’s at the door. “We could maybe do it again?”

David looks up from sorting out his headphones and smiles. “Yeah. It was cool with you. And we did actually get some studying done.”

“Yeah. I actually got more done than I usually do on my own, so…” Matteo says, trailing off.

David nods readily. “We’ll do it again.”

Matteo’s face goes a little warm and he toes at the back of his ankle with one foot. “Okay.”

“Okay,” David agrees and then turns to open the door. “See you at school tomorrow. Or on the bus, if you’re not late.”

“Unlikely,” Matteo says, just because he knows it’ll make David laugh.

It does, and then David gives him a little wave and bounces down the stairs. Matteo closes the door and pretends he's not rushing back to his balcony, leaning over the balustrade and grinning when David turns his head to look back up at him.

David laughs and waves again and then pulls on his headphones, walking off down the street towards the bus stop. It’s a path Matteo has walked often enough to know it by heart and he imagines David on it, maybe texting his sister that he’s on his way, maybe having to run to catch a bus just as it’s about to leave the stop, maybe standing in the cold for ten minutes instead.

Whatever he’s doing, he knows. About Matteo. And instead of scared, all Matteo feels is warm.


	5. April 2019 - IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matteo meets his mother at church. David meets Matteo at church.

**_April 2019_ ** ****

“Dude, it’s your mum. Aren’t you gonna pick up?” Carlos asks when Matteo’s phone rings for the third time that hour, ‘Mum’ spelled out clearly right across the screen.

Matteo sighs and shrugs, silencing his phone rather than picking up the call.

“Brutal,” Carlos comments. “I couldn’t do that to my mum. She’d kill me.”

“That’s because your mum is the least chill person I’ve ever met,” Abdi points out.

“Oy!” Carlos complains immediately, boxing Carlos in the side. “Watch what you say about my mother!”

“Why? She likes it when I call her nasty,” Abdi says, his grin absolutely shit-eating but equally brief when Carlos practically jumps on top of him to give him a noogie and demand he take it back.

David jumps away from them, laughing at their antics but coming around the table to settle at Matteo’s side, where the probability of getting caught up in any kind of shenanigans of that nature is significantly lower. Matteo smiles at him briefly and then turns back to his phone when he gets a text.

Usually his mother always texts. Talking on the phone exhausts her most days, so the fact that she called him – three times at that – is either very good or, more likely, very bad. It could be that it’s not even his mum calling, but someone simply using her phone to try and reach him. It’s not exactly a calming thought, and Matteo chews on his lip and tries to be casual about reaching for his phone so the boys won’t ask him what’s up. Carlos and Abdi are still wrestling, Jonas somehow trying to pull them apart or make sure they don’t knock anything off the table at least so they won’t get kicked out of the café, but David just sits beside him, watching the boys and looking over at Matteo curiously when he grabs his phone.

“You okay?” he asks quietly when Matteo only stares down at the screen for another moment or two.

Matteo shrugs. “It’s just my mum.”

“Have you spoken to her recently?” David asks.

Matteo sighs and slides down against the backrest of his chair a little. “Her texts haven't been very… encouraging. It's been a few weeks since we spoke.”

David hums his understanding.

Once Matteo had told him one secret, it became a lot easier to tell him more, and so between study sessions and walks instead of bus rides, Matteo laid bare more and more of his life for David over the last few weeks. He still hasn't managed to get David to open up to him in the same way, but he's pretty sure that he just needs to give him more time. There are moments when it seems like David wants to say more than he does, and maybe if Matteo keeps showing him that he's not going anywhere, that he trusts David and David can trust him in return, he eventually will.

Plus, it's not like David owes it to him. Matteo gets keeping secrets and protecting yourself. He still hasn't told anyone else about how very fruitless their attempts to set him up with other girls are always going to be, after all.

“You don’t have to open it if you don’t want to,” David says, ever understanding and gentle with Matteo.

Matteo sighs again. “I know, but then I’ll worry. It’s better to know.”

He was always going to open it eventually anyway. Might as well do it now instead of in his bed at two in the morning.

He swipes his thumb over the screen, pulling up the messaging app and tapping on his mother’s last message that starts, as it tends to, with ‘Darling Matteo…’. But instead of a bible verse or a story about how she went to church to pray or to confession, it continues ‘... the choir at church I sing in is performing a little concert on Easter Sunday. I know you haven’t performed in a long time, but you know how woefully lacking male voices tend to be in choirs and two of ours have fallen ill. I probably have no right to ask this of you, but it would be lovely if you joined us. Either way, I’d like it very much if you came. I miss you. Love, Mum’.

David is doing his best to pretend he wasn’t blatantly reading along with Matteo when he looks up from his phone again, and Matteo tries to swallow the lump in his throat and locks the screen before shoving the phone back into his pocket. When he looks up again, David smiles at him sheepishly.

“Sorry,” he mouths.

Matteo shrugs. At least none of the others seem to have noticed anything. And at least it wasn’t actually any of the things he’d feared. It seems like this means his mother is doing well. He knows that she started taking antidepressants a while ago, before he moved out even, but neither of them knew exactly if, when, and how they would really work. But if she’s joined a choir again, that’s good. She always loved singing.

It’s one of the deepest impressions Matteo has of his mother, how much she loves music and singing. She always used to hum when she moved through the house, would turn on music to sing along to when she was showing Matteo how to chop onions in the kitchen, even have it playing gently in the background when he sat at the kitchen table and practised his letters as a kid. She would sit with him and read and sing along quietly from time to time.

Singing was one of the most permanent things in his childhood, and when he joined the church choir she'd been so proud of him. So happy for him. He vividly remembers wanting to be just like her, wanting to be able to sing along to the songs on the radio the way she did. Choir practice turned out to be a lot less fun than goofing off with his mum at home, but he stuck with it because it made her so happy to see him stand up there with the other kids.

It kind of used to be their thing.

It was even something that his dad liked, too. He’d applaud when he heard them sing along to something as they made dinner and jokingly demand they put on concerts for him, sitting on the sofa with a very serious expression on and always giving them standing ovations when they were done, hoisting Matteo up over his shoulder to make him shriek with laughter.

Things got harder as he grew older and once puberty hit Matteo dropped out of choir, too busy with school and church choir a far too uncool thing to spend his free time on. But it was only really when his mum stopped singing that it felt like the end of something. His childhood, maybe. Their family.

There’s a part of Matteo that wants very badly to sing with his mum again.

There’s another part that’s utterly terrified of it. Of her maybe not having the strength to see it through, of it being a bandaid to put over the bullet wound the last year has been without ever acknowledging the hurt.

And then there’s the whole thing about singing in a Roman Catholic church choir when he is, in fact, very gay.

Not that he’d have to tell her, or the choir, but it feels off in a way he can't quite place. It feels somehow worse to willingly go into an environment he knows is not unlikely to judge him for who he is and pretend that he isn’t. If they don’t want him, that’s fine, he doesn’t particularly want them either. But if they _do_ want him, then he wants them to want all of him.

It's just that he hasn't even really started to repair the relationship with his mother yet, and he doesn't want to do anything that might hurt that. It twists his heart a little, every time he wonders if his mother would still love him if she knew, but there's also a part of him that's sure she will. That can't reconcile the way she used to stroke his hair and call him her darling boy with the idea she'd push him away just for falling in love with a boy.

That's just the thing though, isn't it. You never really know until you do.

“Ey, Luigi,” Jonas says, kicking at Matteo’s feet under the table, successfully tearing him out of his thoughts.

“What?”

“Do you want anything to drink? Abdi’s getting more coffee.”

“More coffee? Is that a good idea?” Matteo teases automatically, dropping his head back to lazily grin up at Abdi, who gives him the finger for it.

“Fuck you, dude, even if you do want anything I’m not getting it for you,” he says.

Matteo shrugs. “That’s okay. I’m good.”

Also kind of a little bit broke at the moment.

Abdi sighs dramatically. “This is what I waited around for.”

“It’s very kind of you,” Matteo drawls. “I’m sure your sacrifice will be duly rewarded.”

David laughs into the back of his hand next to him while Abdi frowns down at him, clearly confused.

“What?”

Matteo shrugs again. “Like, karma or whatever. I don’t know. Go get the coffees, man.”

Abdi groans and pushes at his shoulder as he passes him, but David and Jonas are laughing, and Carlos is grinning at him when he sits back up.

“You’re the worst,” Jonas says, grinning widely.

“Don’t sell yourself short. You taught me everything I know,” Matteo quips back easily, grin broadening when it makes Jonas laugh.

“I'm sure it wasn't everything,” David adds drily. “There must be some natural talent there.”

Jonas and Carlos laugh some more at David's comment and Matteo only rolls his eyes at him and gives him a small grin.

He's only been noticing recently that David is even a little more closed off around the other boys than when it's just him and Matteo, and only because he noticed that David has started joining in on their banter more often. It's nice. The boys clearly think so too, even offering David fist bumps and cheers for his more acerbic burns and ribbing him a little in return. They've never talked about it, but Matteo's pretty sure the others have noticed as well that David is a little hesitant about joining in with them and they're taking it easy on him while still seeking to include him in the dumbassery that just naturally seems to happen whenever they hang out together.

It's nice of them.

They're a good bunch. Matteo's quite fond of them, actually.

The only thing David still doesn't join in on are the slap fights that tend to break out, particularly between Carlos and Abdi, often seeking shelter by Matteo's side who generally doesn't get drawn into these things either. Matteo's never sure if it's because everyone can tell that he probably wouldn't engage even if they did try to pull him into it, or because he's about half their size and it just somehow doesn't seem fair. Either way Matteo is honestly fine with it. And David – though he pushes Matteo around sometimes when it's just the two of them, not that Matteo often daydreams about the moment he pinned him to his bed to wrestle his sketchbook back from him – seems to prefer it too.

Matteo elbows him in the side gently, and David rolls his eyes at him in response before Jonas pulls his attention away with a question about some math thing or other that Matteo is honestly glad he doesn't have to care about. He'll never understand why people take math voluntarily.

So he just goes back to his own notes, trying to muster up a bit more energy for memorising the stuff he went over with Amira last time. They've been here for a while and Matteo's pretty sure he's about to hit his limit soon, but he might as well try to give it one more go before he throws in the towel for the day. It's one of those days where he's honestly not sure he's retained a single word of any of the sentences he's read, but at least he tried, right? That has to count for something.

So he stares at his notes about the different parts of the immune system a little longer, trying to ignore the way David is drumming his neon pink marker pen against his own knee in the periphery of his vision. It's just very bright and very much in David's hand and just by those virtues alone far more interesting than cytosolic receptors and inflammasomes and whatever else.

He makes it another thirty minutes of pretending to study before the itch under his skin gets too bad to ignore.

“Okay, I'm done,” he announces.

Four heads lift to look up from their own notes.

“Already?” Jonas asks, frowning a little. “We've only been here a little under three hours.”

Matteo shrugs. “I can't focus right now. I'm going to take a walk and try again later.”

“If you're sure,” Jonas says carefully.

Matteo nods and starts gathering up his things. He knows if he stays he's just going to get frustrated – by his own lack of focus, by the noise of everyone else in the room, by the smell of coffee… really just by everything. He used to think he just had to ride that out, push it down and make himself take it, but that's never really worked for him so now he's trying this thing Hans suggested where he just goes outside and walks a bit instead. It's supposed to help, and a lot of the time it actually does, not that Matteo's particularly happy about admitting that to Hans. Judging by his smug looks he knows anyway though.

He catches David's eyes as he packs everything away in his backpack, David's eyebrows raising in a quick, silent question. It strikes him that he's developed the kind of shorthand with David that he only knows from Jonas – the sentences spoken only with looks, the noticing of details. He swallows against the tickles of butterflies in his stomach and smiles at David until he smiles back and relaxes again.

“Alright, boys. See you next time,” he says, and then holds out his hand for a bro-y half-handshake with each of them. He ruffles David's hair and laughs when David slaps his hand away with a dark 'fuck you'. It makes the other three laugh as well, and when Matteo looks back at him over his shoulder, David is grinning too, rolling his eyes at Matteo for a moment before he turns back to the others again.

Matteo steps outside and takes a deep breath.

Okay. A walk. He can walk.

One foot in front of the other takes him down the street towards the bus stop for the line he'd need to get home, and then past it because he's not done walking yet. David would be so proud.

He puts his headphones on and sets his most played tracks on shuffle and keeps walking, one step after the other, trying not to think about much of anything, until he's made it all the way home. Climbing the stairs to the apartment he pulls out his phone to check the time, mentally calculating how many more hours he has left where he can attempt to study. He knows when it gets too late, even though it doesn't mean he'll sleep, focusing is a lost cause. But if he just whips up a quick dinner – sandwiches maybe, because he's had pasta so much recently that he's actually a little bored of it – he's still got two or three hours left.

In the end, he doesn't manage more than an hour before he admits defeat and gives in to one of the many distractions swimming around his brain, but, hey. An hour is still better than nothing at all. And he's kind of making some actual progress on some of the material these days, so that's something too.

So he pulls up Zelda and puts his headphones back on, leaning against cushions and the wall by the head of his bed and lets his mind get lost in the gameplay and the story until he's feeling drowsy enough that he might actually go to sleep. The apartment's been quiet all evening – or maybe he just missed whatever was happening because of the headphones – and when he goes to brush his teeth, it's dark too. As much as he needs his own space and a door to shut everyone out when he wants to be alone, he's not sure he likes it very much when the whole apartment feels this empty.

But anyway.

They'll come back.

It's when he crawls under the covers, checking the time and considering setting an alarm for the following morning even though it's Saturday and he doesn't really have anywhere to be, that he remembers his mother's text. Biting his lip he pulls it back up again, reading it over and over and trying to parse the way it makes him feel. There's a lot of apprehension there, but he can't deny that he's also a bit excited by the prospect of seeing her again. Of singing with her again.

He misses her. She's still his mum.

So, on a whim, and safe in the knowledge that she won't see it until tomorrow, he sends back an affirmative, telling her to let him know when their next rehearsal is. Then he turns the phone on silent, sets it down on his bedside table, and rolls over, willing himself to fall asleep.

  
  


Luckily it turns out the choir mostly practices in the evenings, given that all its members are at work during the day, and so Matteo doesn't even have to try to work around his school schedule to attend. He almost chickens out the first time, but when he sees his mum, her hair done and her favourite earrings on, smiling at him gently and a little sadly the moment she catches sight of him by the entrance of the church, he's really, really glad he didn't. He's pretty sure the hug they share is too long not to attract attention, and he can't help the tears that well up in his eyes but she just looks so much like he remembers, so much like the woman who would brush his hair out of his face at the breakfast table so she could kiss his forehead and tell him to hurry off to school. The woman who taught him to ride a bike and to cook and to sing.

He's missed her so much.

“Oh, my darling boy,” she whispers and holds him a little more tightly, her hand warm and solid on the back of his head. Her eyes are wet too when they pull away and she wipes a tear off his cheek. “I'm so glad you're here. It's so good to see you.”

“I missed you,” he says and blinks rapidly against the resurgence of tears, tilting his head back to keep them from falling.

“I missed you too,” she says, squeezing his shoulders and finally taking his hand to lead him over to the rest of the choir when he looks at her again.

“Come, I'll introduce you. You know at least half the choir already anyway, and you've sung the song before. It'll be easy,” she assures him. Matteo doesn't point out that he hasn't seen most of these people since he was ten years old and that he's hardly going to be a fit for the soprano part this time around, and follows after her.

She's right anyway. It's not hard to fall back into it, remember his lessons. It's even fun.

Sure, it takes a moment to get past the weirdness of being at least 20 years younger than everyone else, but once all of his mother's old friends who remember him from his past choir days are done pinching his cheeks and exclaiming over how grown up he is, it's nice. He likes having something to do that gives him a reason to leave the apartment, that gives him an excuse to take study breaks.

And he loves the way his mother beams at him every time she sees him walk into the church. It's worth it if just for that.

She's doing so much better these days, and though Matteo doesn't want to jinx it, he feels like she's really better this time. Not that her depression is ever going to go away of course, but she's more open in talking about it, in talking about what she does to deal with it. That seems like a good sign.

It makes him feel a bit like a hypocrite, because he still hasn't told her or the boys about the whole gay thing. Hell, he hasn't even told his friends he's singing in choir with his mum again. Jonas is the only one who'd know what that means anyway, but it still feels fragile. He doesn't want too many people to know about it because if it somehow goes wrong, then. Well. Then they'd know about that too.

David never asked about the text again, but Matteo wants to tell someone, and so when David asks if he wants to study the day of their second to last rehearsal before Easter Sunday, he tells David it'll have to be after rehearsal. David doesn't comment, just texts back 'okay, let me know when you're out' and Matteo texts him back the time rehearsal usually finishes.

Only – and this is really Matteo's bad – it's the second to last rehearsal before their performance, so of course they don't finish on time and by the time Matteo can get two minutes to let David know, he texts back he's already left his place and is en route to Matteo's.

'Shit, sorry. I think Hans is home though, he'll let you in if you want to wait for me?' Matteo suggests, biting his lip.

'How about I come pick you up and we get some dürüm before studying? Brain food, you know.' David sends back.

Matteo grins and his belly does a little flip-flop loop. 'Not sure that dürüm qualifies as brain food, but sure!'

He attaches the church's address and then shoves his phone back into his pocket, turning back to where his mum is giving him a considering look.

“Everything okay?” she asks when he rejoins them.

Matteo nods. “Yeah, everything's fine. I just have plans to study with my friend today so I had to let him know I wasn't done here yet.”

“Oh, if you need to leave, darling, we won't keep you,” his mother says, immediately worried. “Your exams are absolutely more important than this.”

“No, it's fine. He's coming to pick me up. I'll just leave when he gets here.”

“Jonas?” she asks with a smile, and Matteo can tell from the way her eyes go sharp that she can see the way he blushes.

“Uh, no. A new friend,” he says.

Mum hums and smiles at him. “I'm sure he's wonderful if you're friends.”

Matteo blushes a little harder and gladly takes the opportunity to shuffle away from her to his section when the choir leader calls for their attention again.

They run through some of the sections individually and then through the whole song all together three more times before practice ends. It's during that last run through that the door to the church opens and closes again, and Matteo can't help looking over and then promptly stumbles over his next note when he sees that it's David. He's obviously trying to be quiet, but it's a bit of a lost cause in the large, echo-y church.

David sits down in one of the pews at the very back, the wood creaking a little as he does so, and even though Matteo's not watching anymore, he smiles to himself thinking of the grimace David is probably pulling. He doesn't like being more obtrusive than he meant to. Matteo can relate.

When they're done with that run-through of the song, Matteo steps forward and excuses himself, citing a need to study. The choir master sighs and dismisses the whole choir, conceding that they've probably made as much progress today as they can. There's the general shuffling about and chatting as everyone grabs their jackets and various purses, and Matteo hovers a little by his mother's side, wondering if he should say goodbye to her now or introduce her to David.

“You don't have to wait for me,” she says, winding her scarf around her neck. “Go be with your friend.”

“You don't want me to introduce you?” he asks, a little taken aback.

She laughs gently, and brushes his hair back from his face. “Of course I'd like that, but I know that's not exactly at the top of your priority list. I was young once too, you know.”

Matteo huffs a laugh of his own and leans in to accept the hug she offers, wrapping his arms around her middle and letting his eyes fall shut and his shoulders slump when she kisses his hair.

“Go have fun, darling. Be young,” she says, and he squeezes her a little more tightly, heart beating wildly in his chest. He's never going to be as young as he could be, and he knows she knows that too, but hearing her wish it for him still feels like something big.

“Okay,” he says, and kisses her cheek when he pulls back. “See you tomorrow, mum.”

She smiles at him brightly. “Yes. See you tomorrow.”

She gives his shoulder another squeeze and then turns away to one of her friends, starting up a conversation about a neighbour they both know, apparently. Matteo doesn't stay long enough to figure it out, turning around to walk down the aisle towards David instead.

David grins at him, the wood of the pew creaking again as he gets up.

“I could not pick your voice out, but I'm taking that to mean that you're actually good,” he says instead of a hello.

Matteo grins and rolls his eyes at him. His hands are already in the pockets of his jacket, so he elbows David in the arm instead, making him laugh and then cut himself off immediately when it echoes loudly through the whole room.

“Not much experience with churches?” Matteo teases.

David purses his lips at him in that way that means he's trying not to laugh again.

“Not much, no,” he says, and lets his gaze track over the church like he's curious.

“You want to study the architecture a little longer or should we go?” Matteo asks, grinning again when David gives him another one of those looks that are supposed to say he's very unimpressed with Matteo's antics. He's really not very good at concealing that curl of his lip though, always half a smile on his face that says loud and clear how much he likes these antics.

It makes Matteo wonder if David figured out yet that that's half the reason Matteo does it in the first place.

There's something electric about David's attention; his jokes and his half-smiles and the way he listens when Matteo speaks. Even when he has the full focus all of it, all of David's attention on him in that gently inquisitive way of his, Matteo still wants more. He doesn't really want David to never look at anything or anyone else ever again, because he wants the whole world to be David's, would roll it up tight and put it in the palm of his hand if he could, but he also kind of… does.

The way David tilts his head and looks at him sometimes makes Matteo feel exceptional. Singular. Maybe he just wants David to feel like Matteo is those things too. Wants him to do it on purpose.

“Well, I'm ready to go if you are,” David says, shouldering his backpack. “I can hear a dürüm call my name.”

“Oh, really? You can?” Matteo asks sardonically, but starts walking out of the church.

“Yep,” David says, popping the p at the end. His eyes twinkle with mischief in the sunlight as soon as they step outside, the whole of him from the toes of his beaten trainers to his probably-not-actually-woollen beanie looking more sacred than anything in the church they just left.

Matteo has to catch his breath for a second and try not to stumble over his own feet.

“David,” David croons, pitching his voice up. “Please come eat me!”

Matteo bursts into a loud laugh and shakes his head at him.

“Can't you hear it?” David asks, grinning. “David, I've been waiting here so long! I just want you to eat me! I'm so juicy!”

“Jesus,” Matteo snorts. “That's just wrong.”

David laughs and bumps their shoulders together before shrugging unrepentantly. “The heart wants what it wants.”

“No,” Matteo says. “No, that's not what this is.”

“Hm, I think it is,” David insists. “And there's one calling your name too, I think...”

“Absolutely not,” Matteo says and grabs for David, but David laughs and hops to the side, dancing a few steps ahead, evading him easily.

“Matteo,” he says in that ridiculous, pitchy voice, and turns around to grin at David, walking backwards in front of him. “Come eat me!”

“Nooo,” Matteo whines and hopes the way his cheeks go hot doesn't show. “Stop it! Don't anthropomorphise the food I'm about to eat!”

David laughs and bounces in place a little. “Well, fine, but come on! I'm hungry.”

“I'm right here,” Matteo complains.

David laughs again but waits for Matteo to catch up with him and then falls back into step at his side.

“Fine,” he says, and bumps his shoulder into Matteo's arm. “But, hey. Can I come watch the performance?”

“You don't have anything better to do on Easter Sunday?” Matteo asks.

David shrugs. “Not really. Laura and I are probably going to do a brunch thing, but we're not very fussed about it.”

Matteo shrugs and feels his ears go hot again. “Uh, yeah. Then, sure.”

“Cool,” David says, and then grabs Matteo's sleeve, pulling him around a corner. “But honestly, I'm so hungry right now, and I saw this kebab place on my way here.”

“Alright, your Highness, Jesus. I'll even treat you, if you stop pulling my arm out of its socket,” he complains.

David looks down at where his hand is still curled into Matteo's jacket and then back up at his face with a grin.

“No deal,” he says, and yanks on Matteo's arm just for the fun of it, laughing when it actually makes Matteo stumble a bit and pull his hands out of jacket pockets in a frantic fumble to get his balance back.

With David laughing, Matteo seizes the moment of his distraction and reaches out to swipe his beanie off his head, taking off down the street when David grabs for it back.

“Fucking… Matteo!” David yells and gives chase, laughter in his voice even as he curses Matteo out, neither of them caring about the other people they're weaving their way around.

Matteo isn't usually a person who runs voluntarily, but David's laugh is enough to keep him going, to push him to really try to outrun him, accidentally passing the kebab shop David had seen earlier. It's still worth it for the way David's cheeks have gotten ruddy with the exertion and his whole face is open and bright, eyes glowing when he catches up with Matteo and yanks him to a stop.

“Give it back,” he demands and crams the beanie back over his hair when Matteo hands it over without protest. “You made us run past the kebab place.”

“Oops,” Matteo grins, shrugging. “Guess we'll have to find another.”

David rolls his eyes at him, but then laughs. “Guess we've got to.”

They set off again, strolling leisurely this time, in companionable silence. Matteo sneaks a glance at David ever now and then, the relaxed slope of his shoulders, the soft remnant of his beaming smile still lighting up his face and wonders, for the first time, what would happen if he dared bridge the gap between them and reach for his hand. It's always felt so impossible to even consider doing something like that, but there's something about David that makes him want to be bold. Brave.

David catches him looking, tilting his head in an obvious question, and Matteo only shrugs. David smiles at him and turns away again to look ahead.

Matteo looks down at his hand and thinks about holding it, about the smooth warmth of his skin and the tangle of their fingers. It makes butterflies erupt in the pit of his belly, excited and anxious but not scared anymore. He won't know for sure unless he risks it and David has matched him every step of the way so far.

So maybe he gets to be lucky. Maybe he gets to have this, if he can only find the courage to take that plunge.

Maybe not quite yet. But maybe soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a bit longer! I'll try to get back to more regular updates. Let me know how you liked it!


	6. May 2019 - V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matteo has two very important conversations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N:** This chapter kicked my butt a little and then I fell into a dumb writer's block, but! We're back, baby!

_**May 2019** _

"No, for real, bro," Carlos insists. "Thermal spas are the bomb. It's not just old people and little kids. And the massages are amazing. I've never felt so relaxed in my life."

"I don't know," Abdi says, looking dubious while Carlos espouses the virtues of thermal baths and hot stone massages. "I don't think I want some lady putting hot stones on my naked body."

"You're not naked, you dolt, you have a towel," Carlos corrects. "And they're not burning hot, just like when you sit on a stone that's been heated by the sun in summer. It's super cosy. Kiki was totally right."

"Jesus Christ, you're so whipped," Jonas pipes up, like Matteo couldn't list at least five occasions of him having behaved exactly like this back when he and Hanna were together. 'Hanna said' and 'Hanna actually thinks' and 'Hanna mentioned the other day'. It'd be embarrassing if it weren't also somehow… nice. It must be nice, caring so much about one single person, and having them care about you back.

And it's not that Matteo has that, or has prospects of that, but he's so tired of his best friends not even knowing what direction he'd look if he tried.

So.

"Hey, boys?" Matteo says, heart in his throat the moment he does.

Oh god, what if this is a mistake.

"Yeah?" Abdi asks, all three of them turning towards him.

Matteo takes a deep breath and tries to ignore the racing of his heart. They are his best friends, and there's nothing on their faces but guileless curiosity, but still Matteo feels suddenly like he might vomit.

"There's something I want to tell you."

He can hear how his own voice has gone thin, shaking a little and he puts a hand on his knee to wipe the sweat off his palm and also stop the jiggling of his leg.

"Everything okay?" Jonas asks, always the first one to suss out when any of them, and Matteo in particular, aren't feeling great.

"Yeah, bro, you've been quiet," Carlos adds. "Like, more than usual. For a while now."

Well, fuck.

"Um, yeah. Yeah, I'm okay, it's not… bad," he hedges, and drops their gazes, staring at the table in between them, littered with empty beer bottles and bowls that only contain crumbs of crisps by now.

"Okay, so what is it?" Abdi asks, when Matteo tries in vain to swallow the lump sitting in his throat.

"Give him a moment, Jesus," Carlos says, boxing Abdi in the side.

"What? I just want to know! He already said it's not bad."

"Maybe let Matteo speak?" Jonas suggests mildly, before they can devolve into a full-blown argument.

Carlos and Abdi fall silent instantly, turning back to Matteo with their faces open and expectant.

"So, you know how, like, Sara and I didn't work out?" he asks. He's not sure if he's easing them into it or stalling for time, but even though he knows they're good people and this is probably all going to be fine, he can't shake the nerves.

"Yeah?" Carlos says.

"Oh my god, was there someone else? Is that why---?" Abdi starts to ask, but Carlos cuts him off with another jab.

"Dude, let him just tell us."

"Right, sorry. Go on."

Jonas huffs a quiet laugh and catches Matteo's eyes to share a look with him, rolling his eyes fondly. Even now Matteo can't help but smile back, weak though it is, before his gaze falls again.

"Okay. So. Um. The thing is that I didn't want to be with Sara because, I, uh…" he trails off, flicks his gaze up at them, and swallows hard. He looks back down at his own hands on his legs, balling them into fists, and makes himself go on. “Well, I. I don't like girls like that.”

The silence that falls in the room after he speaks is so absolute that it's deafening. Matteo can feel the veins in his neck pulse in time with the rapid, harsh beating of his heart, and he's pretty sure he could hear a pin drop if anyone actually had one to drop.

“What, like you're gay?” Carlos asks into the quiet.

Matteo looks up at him purely on instinct and shrugs when he's met with the complete confusion on his face, but before he can say anything, Jonas reaches over to slap the back of Carlos' head.

“What the fuck else would he mean?” he says, rolling his eyes when Carlos jerks away to glare at him and rub the back of his head.

“What? I'm just asking! Maybe he doesn't like anyone like that!”

“Then he probably would have said, don't you think?” Jonas points out.

“Well, I don't know!” Carlos says, looking like he's about to start another verbal spar, so Matteo cuts in before he can.

“No, I did mean that. I'm gay, yeah.”

All three of them turn towards him again, effectively silenced, and Matteo suddenly feels the urge to backpedal.

“I mean, I'm not into any of you or anything like that,” he says. “Just, like, into men.”

There's another beat of silence, and then Carlos and Abdi make almost identical outraged honking noises.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Abdi asks.

“Yeah, what the fuck are we? Chopped liver?” Carlos adds.

Matteo can feel his eyes go wide, and he helplessly looks over to the side, meeting Jonas' gaze. Jonas, bless him, looks equally incredulous and then breaks out into a grin and lets his face fall into his palm, laughing a little to himself.

“What is wrong with you?” he asks.

Abdi crosses his arms and actually pouts a little. “What? Matteo's basically saying we're not good enough for him. There's nothing wrong with us.”

“You're my friends,” Matteo stresses.

Carlos waves him off. “Yeah, but, like, if you had to, right? Like, we're the only people left in the world. Then who would you pick?”

“Like, to fuck,” Abdi adds helpfully, like Matteo doesn't get where Carlos is going with this.

“David,” Matteo says reflexively, because David isn't here to hear him and also because he knows it'll annoy them. And maybe, just a little bit, because it's true.

Jonas laughs, but Carlos and Abdi make frustrated noises and gestures.

“No!” Carlos insists. “Between us!”

Matteo aaahs like he misunderstood and says, “Jonas.”

“Dude, fuck you,” Carlos says, who's definitely caught on that Matteo is messing with them. Jonas' laugh turns into a triumphant cackle.

“Between Carlos and me,” Abdi clarifies. “Who would you pick between Carlos and me?”

Matteo squints back at them. “Why do you care? Would you be fighting over me?”

Abdi sputters some not-quite-words, and Jonas laughs again.

“Like, I'm flattered,” Matteo says and grins. “But I'm really not into you like that.”

“Be that as it may,” Jonas cuts in, before it can all derail into even more nonsense, grinning at them but rolling his eyes too, and then looking at Matteo with something a lot softer on his face. “Thanks for telling us, Luigi.”

Matteo blushes.

“I just couldn't listen to you trying to get me to hook up with whatever girl of the week anymore,” he blusters, trying to brush it all off. Leave it to Jonas to not only see through all of Matteo's jokes to the very real nerves underneath, but poke at them too. Even if his intention is to soothe.

“Oh shit,” Carlos says, eyes going wide.

“Man, I can't believe you didn't tell us earlier,” Abdi complains. “We wasted so much time!”

“Yeah, bro, fuck. We could have been scouting out guys for you the whole time!” Carlos adds.

Matteo's heart trips over itself, his eyes wide and jaw a little slack.

“Uh,” he says, not very intelligently.

Carlos scoots to the edge of the sofa, elbows braced on his knees, staring at Matteo intently. “You gotta tell us what you're into, dude. So we know what to look for, yeah?”

“What? No,” Matteo says, crossing his arms and hoping the rising heat in his face isn't too visible.

“Come on, what's your type?” Abdi wheedles and then adds, “Can't be too handsome, since it's neither of us.”

Carlos laughs and high-fives him.

“Fuck, you're not into the Hardenberg type though, are you?” he asks then.

Matteo wrinkles his nose automatically. That's not even a thought he wants to entertain. “No, definitely not.”

“Your taste can't be that awful then,” Carlos says, and then looks around like Mia might be lurking somewhere and hear him.

Jonas rolls his eyes at him. “Alex isn't that bad. He's kind of a nice guy.”

“Bro, I say this with love,” Matteo says, “but no. Axel has always been a bit of a dick. He's going to some fancy school in London for a business degree. You'd want to strangle him at the latest an hour into a conversation.”

Jonas laughs and shrugs. “Still. None of us really know the guy.”

“Okay, well, if Matteo isn't going to tell us anything, then I vote we not sit around like a bunch of girls gossiping about cute boys,” Carlos says and reaches for one of the bowls only to find it empty of crisps. He groans and sets it back down and then pulls out his phone. “I actually vote we call for pizza. It's getting late.”

“Oh yeah, didn't David say he might join us after he's done with his PE practice thing?” Jonas adds, pulling out his own phone as if to check for messages from him. Matteo copies him, slightly disappointed when there's nothing new in their whatsapp group or the private chat he has with David.

“Oh, bro, does David know?” Abdi asks. “Did you tell us now cause you don't want him to know? Because I think he'd be chill with it.”

Matteo looks up at him, eyes wide. Fuck.

“No, um. David already knows,” he hedges, wincing when he's met with three expressions all mixed between something like hurt and confusion.

“You told him before us?” Jonas asks.

Matteo shrugs. “He asked.”

“What, he straight up asked if you're gay?” Carlos asks.

“No, he asked why I turned Sara down. I guess he must have noticed I didn't really seem into it when girls came up or something,” Matteo explains. “Look, you guys are my best friends. It was just easier to tell David because if he'd been a dick about it I'd still have you.”

“Bro,” Carlos says, eyes wide and not just a little emotional.

“Fuck off,” Matteo says automatically, shoulders hunching and rolling his eyes at them.

“No, man, that's...” Carlos starts but then trails off and gets up off the sofa instead, rounding the little coffee table and leaning down to pull Matteo into a hug. “Bros forever, yeah?”

Matteo would be lying if he tried to claim this isn't choking him up a little, but he sure as hell isn't going to start crying on Carlos' shoulder because they're friends.

“Bros forever!” Abdi agrees enthusiastically, and before Matteo knows what's happening, he barrels into his side, joining the hug and squeezing Matteo just a little bit more tightly. And then, only a few seconds later, Jonas slots into the hug on Matteo's other side, grinning at him brightly when Matteo cranes his neck to look over at him.

“Thanks for telling us now though,” he says and then leans in to press a kiss to Matteo's hair. If Matteo lets his eyes fall shut to soak up the affection for just a second, that's absolutely no one's business but his own.

It doesn't take long for the hug to fall apart into hearty slaps on everyone's backs, and Matteo can't help but grin at it a little.

“So, pizza?” he asks, when the boys pull away from him again.

“Yes, please,” Abdi agrees immediately. “I'm starving.”

Jonas whips his phone out to take over ordering for them all, ever the mama bear of their little group, and Matteo puts in his usual order of margherita and tzatziki – it's good and as opposed to the hollandaise sauce Carlos likes on his pizza not a complete abomination – and then gets up to take the empty bowls into the kitchen and fetch himself a glass of water. The dishwasher still needs to be emptied of the clean dishes from this morning, so he just puts the bowls in the sink and then leans against the counter with his glass of water, taking a few moments to stare off into space.

He can't quite believe he just came out to his friends.

He's done it. He told them. And they did not give two shits about it either way. Logically, he knew that was the most likely outcome, but having actually experienced it is a completely different thing.

The glass is sweating condensation in his hand, and the water is cold enough so he can feel it on his teeth when he takes a sip, but it feels good. Real. Like he can trust this.

He sets the glass back down to get back to the boys before they have time to wonder where he is, but just then his phone buzzes in his pocket with a message. It's probably his mum, and he's been trying to be better about texting her back right away and not only a few hours later, so he pulls the phone out of his sweater pocket, surprised when he sees it's a message from David instead.

'Can I come over?' it says.

'Sure. You want pizza?' Matteo sends back.

The typing bubble pops up for a second before David's next message comes through.

'No, thanks. Be there in twenty.'

Matteo smiles down at his phone and sends him back a thumbs up and a smiley face, watching the two check marks turn blue before he pockets his phone again.

“David's coming over,” he says when he gets back to his room, the announcement being met with three cheers.

“Does he want pizza?” Jonas asks, but Matteo shakes his head.

“He said no.”

“Hm. I'm not seeing his message in the group chat,” Jonas says then, frowning down at his phone.

“Oh, he texted me,” Matteo says, waving Jonas off.

Abdi turns to him with a broad grin. “He texted you? Maybe he's into you. Should we ask him if he's gay too?”

“Absolutely not,” Matteo says immediately.

“Do not ask people if they're gay just out of the blue, Abdi,” Jonas adds. “Please.”

“What? He's totally handsome though, right?” Abdi goes on. “And Matteo said he would fuck him.”

“You can't ask people if they're gay just because Matteo might want to fuck them,” Jonas sighs and shoves at Abdi's shoulder.

“Well, why not? I just want to help a bro out!” Abdi insists.

Jonas looks at him like he's grown a second head and takes a deep breath, clearly gearing up for a full-on lecture.

“Please just don't,” Matteo cuts in. “It's really uncomfortable.”

“Oh,” Abdi says and shrugs. “Yeah, sorry, dude. Of course I won't.”

Matteo grins at him and sits back down with them, shaking his head a little. “Thanks, bro.”

“No worries. I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable, I just want you to know, like, we've got your back, right?” Abdi explains. “Like we would with any chick.”

“I know that,” Matteo says, because even though he just came out to them less than an hour ago, he does know that now. Completely. His friends are occasionally awkward bulls in china shops, but they've totally got his back. It feels nice. “I promise I'll let you know if I could use your help, okay?”

“Cool, bro,” Abdi grins, slapping him on the back jovially. Carlos raises his beer bottle at him in a salute, and Jonas beams at them all like he's a very proud mother hen. Definitely a ridiculous bunch, but Matteo couldn't be happier with them.

“Anyway, is that what you've been trying with Sam? Just straight up asked her if she wants to fuck?” he asks.

“What? Dude, no,” Abdi says, squirming a little.

“I mean, she might appreciate the direct approach,” Jonas points out.

“Yeah, man. What actually have you been doing?” Carlos asks.

Abdi squirms through an answer about how he's not there yet, he's just trying to get a feel for whether she might even like him back for now, and Matteo and the question of David's sexuality are quickly forgotten. It passes the time until the doorbell rings to announce the arrival of their pizza easily, and Matteo volunteers to go collect it. They've prepaid it, but he digs some change out of his wallet that won't look quite so pitiful as a tip, and exchanges the stack of pizza boxes for it easily.

It's only when the guy turns to leave that he sees David behind him, shoulders drawn up a little.

“Oh, hey,” he says and steps aside for David to come in.

David hesitates a little on the threshold, eyes going from the boxes in Matteo's hand further down the hallway of the flat to where the boys' laughter is spilling out of his room. “You have people over.”

“Yeah, the boys are here,” Matteo says and frowns a little. David knew that. He was invited.

“Right,” he says, face brightening as he must remember. “I, uh, forgot.”

He looks down at his shoes and then throws another look into the flat, and Matteo looks him over a little more closely.

He looks tense. His shoulders really are drawn up quite noticeably and his back is hunched a little like he's trying to curl up even while standing. His hands are shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket and he's got the hood of his sweatshirt pulled low over his forehead.

“Are you okay?” Matteo asks carefully.

It was evidently the wrong thing to ask, because David shrinks into himself further and takes a step back.

“Yeah, sorry, just tired. Don't think I'm up to crowds, so I'll just leave you to it,” he says, taking another step back, further into the stairwell outside. “You guys have fun.”

“No, hang on, stop,” Matteo says. “Stay.”

David looks up at him, his eyes stormy and brimming with some kind of hurt that makes Matteo ache in sympathy.

“No, really, it's fine. Laura will be home tomorrow morning, I'll just go home.”

“Stay,” Matteo repeats. “I'll kick them out.”

David's eyes go wide, and he starts to protest, but Matteo ignores him and marches into his bedroom.

“Alright, change of plans, you're all leaving,” he says. “Take your pizza and go.”

“Huh? What do you mean?” Abdi asks. He’s not the only one wearing an expression of complete confusion.

“Something’s come up, sorry,” Matteo says. “Emergency. You guys need to leave.”

“No, what? Hold on, what kind of emergency?” Jonas asks.

Matteo really loves how Jonas is always willing and ready to help, but right now, he really just needs them to leave before David sneaks back out again. So he just shrugs at him and takes a step back toward the hallway.

“I can’t explain right now. But if you don’t get going, you’re not getting your pizzas.”

It’s a threat that works, especially since Matteo turns tail again and walks back out into the hallway, turning to look for David automatically. From the way David hum-ed and haw-ed he honestly half expected him to have left again, but he’s still there, hovering just inside the entrance, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket, his gym bag still slung over his shoulder.

He’s ducking his head even as Matteo approaches, pizza boxes balanced in one hand. His voice comes out quiet enough that Matteo’s not sure he would have heard him if he didn’t see his lips move.

“You really didn’t need to do that.”

Matteo shrugs at him too. “I wanted to. Now help me find my pizza before the boys take that one too.”

David’s eyes flit up to meet his, and for a brief moment he’s almost smiling. Matteo holds out the pizza boxes to him, and David dutifully lifts the lid off the first one.

“Nope,” Matteo says, peering down into the box. “You’re looking for margherita.”

“That’s so bland,” David says, and Matteo saves the indignant speech he’d have given any of the other boys for that comment for some other time. He’s not sure David’s up to their usual level of teasing right now, and anyway, the boys have seemingly finally found all of their stuff strewn across his room, spilling out into the hallway behind him in an avalanche of limbs and chatter.

“David!” Abdi cheers when he catches sight of him, rushing up to greet him with a grin and a fist bump. “Luigi’s kicking us all out and won’t even tell us why. And just when you got here!”

Matteo can see David shrink a little, hands stilling on the pizza box he was just about to open. “Um, sorry.”

“Ah, not your fault, man. He’s just an asshole sometimes.” To his credit, Abdi is slipping on his shoes though. “You should come have pizza with us though.”

Carlos and Jonas have put their shoes on as well by now, reaching out for the pizza boxes Matteo holds out to them.

Matteo searches out Jonas’ eyes and shuffles a little, turning his body so David is just a little bit stood behind his shoulder at his side. “David’s staying.”

Jonas must make some sort of connection at that, because he claps both Carlos and Abdi on the shoulders when they make protesting noises at that declaration and starts herding them towards the door.

“That makes no sense, bro!” Carlos complains, but he’s got all three of their pizza boxes in his hands now, and if Matteo wasn’t still holding his own, he’d physically push him out the door. Luckily, he has Jonas to do the pushing for him.

“Let’s just go. I’m sure Luigi’s going to explain later, okay?”

“Oh my god,” Abdi says, eyes going wide and a grin breaking out over his face. “Are you two going to fuck?!”

David shrinks a little more, clutching the strap of his gym bag and drawing back from Matteo as though it’s the physical distance between them that’s making Abdi ask.

“Out!” Matteo yells, risking the pizza still balanced in his hand to kick at him and then the door when they’re all finally through. It falls shut with a loud bang, cutting off Jonas’ chiding remark about a time and place for these kinds of questions.

Matteo immediately whirls around to face David again, face going hot now that it’s just the two of them in the ringing silence of his hallway. David’s still got his shoes and jacket on, for Christ’s sake. Matteo clutches the pizza box in both hands and looks up at him shyly, shrugging a little helplessly when David meets his gaze.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I told them, earlier. That I’m gay. So now…” Matteo tries to explain but then sighs and shrugs again. “Abdi’s just an idiot.”

“No, it’s fine. I just wasn’t expecting it,” David insists.

The silence that falls between them is a little awkward, but Matteo remembers that David asked to come over, apparently completely forgetting about their plans to all hang out here today anyway, and so he pushes it to the side in favour of whatever’s going on with him. From the way David’s still standing there, holding onto the strap of his gym bag there’s got to be something.

“Okay. My room? We can go on the balcony if you like.”

David likes Matteo’s balcony. Something about being outside where there is more air to breathe while still getting to be removed from the general hustle and bustle of the streets. Not that there’s much hustling and bustling on Matteo’s street, but Matteo gets the sentiment.

“Yeah, okay,” David agrees, and finally slips off his shoes, following after Matteo quietly when he leads the way back to his room.

Matteo closes the door behind them, watching David set his gym bag down and throw his jacket on top of it.

“I know you said you didn’t want any earlier, but we can just eat pizza if you’d like.”

David nods. “Yeah, okay.”

“I mean… or we can talk.”

“No, pizza’s fine,” David says. “Can we talk later?”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever you want.”

David ducks his head again and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jogging pants. “Thank you.”

‘Anytime,’ Matteo wants to say. ‘I want to help. Tell me what I can do.’

It’s not that Matteo is unpracticed at offering help, but he’s unpracticed at offering it to David. Jonas needs a good rant and a shoulder to lean on at the end. Abdi needs someone to offer explanations, Carlos someone to talk him out of the mess he makes in his head. Hanna needed cuddles and a pep talk, back before Matteo used that against her.

He doesn’t know what David needs, and the way he’s curling in on himself, his gaze always either on the floor or darting around the room like he’s looking for exits, has Matteo worried that if he gets it wrong, David will spook and take off. And he wants to believe that it means something, that he came here. To Matteo. Sure, it’s because his sister isn’t at home, but Matteo can handle being second to a sister. If he had a sister, maybe his friends would be second to her as well.

So he just shrugs.

“You want to go outside or stay here?”

David looks from Matteo’s couch to his bed and then to the balcony and Matteo’s pretty sure he knows what he’s going to say before he does. And sure enough, David says, “Outside?” the intonation of it more question than statement.

“Cool.”

Matteo moves first, dragging his desk chair with him because there’s only one chair on the balcony. Frankly, it came with the apartment, like all the other furniture in Matteo’s room. If it hadn’t, Matteo’s pretty sure he’d still be sleeping on a mattress on the floor and living out of cardboard boxes and plastic bags. But, as it is, he’s got a pretty good set up going.

David follows him outside, muttering a quiet thank you when Matteo gestures to the chair for him to sit on and then holds out the box of pizza. David takes a slice, and nibbles on the point of the triangle, staring out into the street beyond the balustrade of the balcony. Sitting down they can just look out over the top of it, but it’s enough to offer a little bit of distraction.

It feels strange to eat with David so clearly void of appetite, like he shouldn’t be doing it, but now that he has food in his hands, Matteo finds he’s actually pretty hungry, remembers he hasn’t really eaten much today yet except the handful of crisps earlier. So he eats, dripping tzatziki over half the pizza, leaving enough for David to have some later if he wants to, and even leaving some of the tzatziki for him too, should he want to try it.

“What are you doing?” David asks, watching Matteo drizzle the tzatziki over the pizza, brows furrowed when Matteo looks up at him.

“It’s tzatziki,” Matteo explains.

David wrinkles his nose. “Aren’t you Italian?”

“Half,” Matteo says with a grin. “And this is delicious.”

“Uh, I think I’ll take your word for it, thanks.”

Matteo shrugs and takes a hearty bite, balancing the open cardboard box on his thighs. “Carlos puts sauce hollandaise on his.”

David’s nose wrinkles even more. “Okay, that’s worse, that is absolutely disgusting, but that doesn’t mean yours is much better.”

“You won’t know unless you try it.”

David glances down at the pizza with a sceptical eyebrow raised, considering it for a moment before he grimaces again. “Yeah, no. Thanks.”

Matteo shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

David does, going back to staring at nothing and making the slowest progress on his slice of pizza Matteo has ever seen a teenage boy make. Matteo finishes his own half and when David declines a second slice, he folds the lid back over the remaining pizza and sets the box down on the ground. David tenses again, now that there’s nothing to pretend to be distracted by, nothing that’s actually distracting Matteo.

“You don’t have to tell me what’s going on. We can just chill,” Matteo suggests. “Smoke, or play Zelda, or watch a movie or something.”

David looks at him as he speaks and then looks out towards the street again. Matteo isn’t sure if he’s considering it, or if he took ‘sit here in total silence’ as an implied other option, but he’s cool with it, so he leans back against the backrest of his own chair and turns to look at the street too.

“You came out to the others?” David asks, instead of saying anything about himself.

Matteo feels his cheeks flush with a pleased heat at the memory and can’t help his smile, ducking his head a little. When he looks up, David is smiling over at him. He still looks exhausted, but maybe a little less like he’s got to carry the whole world on his shoulders.

“Yeah,” Matteo says. “I don’t really know why, it just… happened. I didn’t plan it or anything.”

“Sometimes you just go for it,” David says, shrugging as if it’s that easy.

It’s true enough. Matteo hums in agreement.

David bites his lip and then asks, “They took it well?”

Matteo laughs and sags against the chair, slumping a little further down.

“They took it really well,” he says. “They didn’t really care at all. I mean, I sort of assumed they wouldn’t anyway, but it makes me feel a little stupid that I waited so long to tell them.”

“Don’t feel stupid,” David protests immediately. “You can’t know how people will react, no matter how close you are or what you think of them. You could have gotten hurt, so you protected yourself. That’s not stupid.”

“I guess. It’s just that they’re my best friends, you know? I knew they weren’t assholes.”

“People can always surprise you,” David says. His brows are furrowed in a heavy frown, the look on his face dark as he stares out into the falling evening. He shakes his head as if to rid himself of the thought and then pulls a smile back onto his face when he turns back to look at Matteo again. “I’m really happy for you though. That you could do it and that it went well.”

“I thought it might get them to stop trying to set me up, but now they just want to set me up with guys instead,” Matteo laments.

David grins, his first genuine smile since he came over, but then his eyes widen and he swallows. “Is that why--? Did you tell them about me?”

“No!” Matteo cuts in immediately. “No, definitely not.”

David nods, tension falling off his shoulders, and Matteo curls his toes against the cold concrete floor of the balcony. He could probably get away with just attributing that to their general idiocy, but there’s no way Abdi and Carlos won’t gleefully tell David all about how Matteo told them he’d fuck him the next time they see him. They’d play it off as the joke Matteo made it seem to them, but he’s not sure he wants David to think it’s a joke.

He’s not sure he’s ready for David to know it’s not a joke.

Either way though, he’d prefer if David heard it from him.

“No, they just…” he starts and trails off, face flushing with heat. It must show on his skin, because David goes from halfway apprehensive to curious, tilting his head and looking at Matteo openly.

“They…?”

“They asked me who’s most my type out of them--”

“God save us from straight boy egos,” David interrupts, rolling his eyes, and Matteo bursts out into a laugh. Aside from Hans, he doesn’t know anyone who says such unapologetically not-straight things around him, and Matteo didn’t think it’d be so thrilling to hear.

But it is. He grins. “Right?”

David shakes his head with a commiserating grimace, but then stops short, gaze fixing on Matteo.

“Wait. You said me? That’s why Abdi--?”

Matteo shrugs and nods, but before he can decide whether he’s going to play it off as a joke to David too or maybe – _maybe_ _–_ take that step off a cliff to see if there’s a chance that David likes him back, David blushes. Full-on blushes, cheeks and ears and the bridge of his nose going pink like Matteo’s never seen before.

It knocks him off balance, makes his own blush come back in full force, and he knows it’s not as pretty on him as it is on David. His face doesn’t go a fetching rosy pink, it turns the sunburnt red of the truly pale, blotchy and unbecoming.

“Like, as a joke?” David asks, voice small and almost brittle.

Matteo’s heart pounds in his chest. Maybe this is the moment where he pushes, where he lets David know-- but then again, maybe this is the moment where he pushes too far.

“I mean, I knew it’d annoy them,” he says and watches the way the corners of David’s mouth twitch into a small smile. He makes a choice. “But it’s still true. You’re easily more handsome than them.”

David cuts his gaze away immediately, lips pressing together as he stares out into the street, face turned away to hide his expression but only giving Matteo an easier view of the way the tip of his ear glows red.

Matteo can’t work out if it’s a good blush or a bad blush, though he’s never known David to couch his anger. And surely it can’t just be surprise. David must have seen himself in a mirror. He must know how handsome he is.

“You don’t mean that,” David says then, quietly.

“Uh, yeah,” Matteo insists. “I’m gay. If there’s one thing I know it’s handsome boys. You can trust me on this.”

Matteo doesn’t really know how to talk about this without making it a joke – or laying all of his cards on the table – but it works in so far as that it gets David’s mouth to twitch in that half-smile he’s never fast enough to suppress. But it also doesn’t work, because it flickers out immediately with a heavy sigh and David’s eyes going distant and dark again.

“I had--” David starts and breaks off, biting his lip. “I got into a fight with Neuhaus at practice today.”

He glances back towards Matteo to check if he’s listening, but looks away again when he sees that he is. Matteo waits for him to go on, but instead his leg bounces up and down a little and he bites his lip.

“What about?” Matteo finally asks, not entirely sure how they got here.

David sighs, again, just as heavily as before. It’s followed by an even longer silence, and his voice is quiet as a mouse when he speaks again. “He wants to, um. He wants to grade me differently. Than the other boys.”

Matteo feels his eyebrows pull into a frown. “Why? Are you, like, insanely good?”

David huffs a surprised laugh, turning briefly to smile at Matteo. “No, what? You don’t get treated differently for that.”

Matteo laughs too. “Well, why then? Do I look like I know sports?”

He expects a joke to follow that easy set-up, but instead David’s face goes tight with nerves again, and suddenly Matteo’s stomach sinks.

“Are you ill?” His voice comes out hushed and a little too scared to try and offer comfort if that’s what David needs, but David only grimaces a little and then shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “No, I’m not ill.”

Matteo takes a steadying breath, heart rabbit-fast in his chest still, but the flash of panic gone.

“He wants to grade me as a girl, because that’s what my ID says,” David says, fast, like if he doesn’t get out all the words at once, he won’t make it.

“But you’re a boy,” Matteo says, stumped.

David’s eyes are a little wet when he looks over at Matteo again and he nods, just a little bit.

“I am. But I was born in the body of a girl, so…”

Oh.

Matteo's head goes blank, trying to make sense of that information. He's not completely uninformed about the realities of the world, so he knows what David means, but somehow that doesn't make it any easier to process.

“I'm transgender,” David says, like he thinks Matteo's fallen quiet because he doesn't know what David means.

“So, you're...” Matteo hears himself say, though he doesn't have any idea where he plans on going with that sentence. Question?

“A boy,” David repeats, face pinched like he can't bear to hear Matteo claim differently. Matteo's not sure he was going to. “I'm a boy. I just have to work a little harder at it.”

Matteo nods dumbly. That makes sense, somehow. There's… hormones, right? Maybe operations?

Fuck. That's probably none of his business.

“Okay, wait, so,” he tries again, watching David swallow heavily, “what does your grade have to do with your ID?”

It's David's turn to be stumped now, eyes running over Matteo's face like they're searching for something. Matteo doesn't know if he finds it, but eventually David cuts his eyes away again, staring out into the street and the falling night and balls his fists.

“Fucking nothing!” he explodes, voice harsh and sharp in a way Matteo has never heard it before. “There's no reason at all not to grade me correctly. Neuhaus just thinks he's doing me a fucking favour.”

“A favour?” Matteo echoes, frowning to himself. How in the world would that be a favour?

David laughs a dismissive, short laugh. “Because the girls' exams are easier.”

Matteo blinks. “That sounds sexist and dumb.”

“Because it is.” David's still glaring, arms now crossed in front of his chest but his hands still balled to fists. He looks like every cell in his body is tensed, ready to spring up and fight someone if only this could be solved that way. “It's not even like I haven't been keeping up in classes or anything, but now that exams are around the corner he's suddenly all---”

He cuts himself off and huffs again, an angry sound that Matteo doesn't really know what to do with when David doesn't follow it up with anything.

“Does Dr. Steinberg know?” he asks.

“About Neuhaus?” David asks back. “Or about me?”

“Either. Both,” Matteo says. “If she knows and she said you were going to get all the right grades, then he can't--”

“She knows about me. It's why I transferred here, because she said---” David cuts himself off again and takes a shuddery breath like maybe he's trying not to cry. Matteo's heart squeezes tight in his chest, beating harsh and frantic. “She said it wouldn't be an issue at all. She was really nice about everything, but now everything's fucked again.”

“No, it isn't,” Matteo insists, wanting to soothe. He reaches out for David to-- take his hand, maybe, but David scoots back in his chair, so Matteo drops it again.

“Yes, it is! You don't know what this is like!” David bites. “It starts with Neuhaus 'wanting to do me a favour' and then no matter what I do, someone's going to hear about it and they're going to tell everyone else and then people are going to stare again and ask me all sorts of bullshit questions and I'm so fucking tired of it!”

David groans and rubs his hands over his face, slumping in his chair.

“My last school was so horrible. Everybody knew and they all-- even the teachers! I'm just so tired of always having to explain myself, Matteo.”

That at least Matteo does understand. Not to the extend that David is hinting at, the things he's probably had to go through at his old school, but he thinks he understands a little what it's like feeling like you have to justify yourself. Like you have to offer explanations and opt-out clauses for the people around you just to get to be in the same spaces they are.

“We'll figure it out,” Matteo says, and this time he reaches for David and puts a hand on his knee even though it makes David freeze under his touch at first before he relaxes into it, his hands falling down from his face again. He looks as tired as he said he feels, face drawn with the kind of exhaustion Matteo thinks he's intimately acquainted with. He'd never wish that on anyone, but especially not David.

“We'll make an appointment with Dr. Steinberg, we can say it's for me, I don't care. And she'll tell Neuhaus to cut it out, okay?”

David takes a deep breath and then nods; tiny and unsure, but he nods.

“We'll figure something out,” Matteo repeats. “You don't have to do this alone.”

David nods again and puts his own hand on top of Matteo's, squeezing it a little. “Thank you.”

“You don't have to thank me. Of course I-- I want to help,” Matteo says, feeling ironically helpless. They're friends, so of course Matteo would want to help, but they're more than that too. At least David is more than that to Matteo, but this probably really isn't the moment for that.

“You can stay the night, if you want.”

He can't imagine wanting to be alone right now, and judging by David's little smile and his grateful nod, he doesn't want to be either.

“Thank you,” he says again, despite Matteo's protestation, so Matteo rolls his eyes at him.

“Shut up, you idiot.”

David gasps, faking hurt, but his little smile doesn't waver. “Don't be mean to me, I'm vulnerable.”

Matteo snorts a small laugh and rolls his eyes again and then leans back, uncomfortable from being hunched over for so long. David's hand flexes on his own leg where Matteo's had just been.

“Can I--” Matteo starts and then stops when David looks up at him before pushing on. “Do you want a hug?”

David's laugh sounds a little wet, like he really is still feeling very vulnerable right now, but then he blinks rapidly and nods.

Matteo's heart knocks rapidly against his chest as they both get up from their chairs, a little awkward because who the hell announces a hug? But then before they can collide, Matteo grabs David by the sleeve and pulls him back into his room, suddenly feeling too exposed out on the balcony. It's even darker in his room than it is outside, but that suits him just fine, and he folds his arms around David's shoulders without any more hesitation.

David stiffens at first, the way he did when Matteo touched his knee, but then he sighs, a deep heavy exhale that loosens his whole body, making him sink against Matteo, his own arms wrapping around his ribs and back, holding on. Steady at first and then a little more tightly, like he needs the contact to feel grounded. Matteo hugs him back, leans his head against David's shoulder and squeezes a little more tightly too, settling in, his heartbeat slowing back down from the initial anxious rush of contact.

It takes a little while longer until David lays his own head on Matteo's shoulder as well, but then he does, and they just stay there, holding each other close. They're too close to be really stable and occasionally it makes them sway, but so long as David doesn't pull back, Matteo won't either. He can stay here all night.

They don't have anywhere else to be, and certainly nothing more important to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Concerning David and his grades and his ID - I read somewhere once that he wouldn't be able to get the correct grades without a correct ID anyway, so I looked into it as best I could and to the best of my understanding there shouldn't be a problem for David to get graded as the correct gender, ID change or no. I really wanted not to get that wrong, but if I did, I apologise.
> 
> (I base that on [this](https://www.trans-kinder-netz.de/files/pdf/Augstein%20Maerz%202013.pdf) and [this](http://www.antidiskriminierungsstelle.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Literatur_Bildung/Name_Trans_Studierende.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=1), both of which are in German, sorry.)


	7. June 2019 - VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prom does not go according to plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N:** Halfway, baby!!

_**June 2019** _

David’s announcement is met with enough disbelieving surprise that he starts to laugh at the faces staring back at him. Abdi even sits back up from where he'd been lying on his back in the grass, taking in the sun, to stare at David with wide eyes. Carlos stops bouncing the ball they'd just kicked around against the ground and Jonas looks up from where he'd probably been texting Hanna. Matteo is admittedly feeling more on the side of disbelief and surprise himself, but he can feel his mouth twitch into a small smile, captivated as always by the way joy lights up David's face so well.

“What do you mean you’re not going to prom?” Abdi asks, frowning in what seems to be genuine confusion.

“Uh, that I’m not going,” David repeats, smile a little smaller, but no less amused.

Abdi stares at him some more like that might make David elaborate, and when it doesn’t asks, “But why?”

David shrugs. “I’m just not feeling it. This isn’t, like, ‘twelve years of family’ for me, you know? I just got here a couple months ago. I never planned on going at my old school either.”

“But you’re here now, bro,” Jonas chimes in. “Doesn’t matter that you haven’t been here for twelve years, you’re here now. It won’t be the same without you.”

David stops up short in the way that Matteo’s come to recognise ever since David shared the reason for his transfer. It always makes his heart twinge a little, the way David seems so unused to the easy affection and the simple friendship the boys – or Matteo himself – offer. Matteo kept his own secret because he was scared of losing that, but it seems more and more like David may not ever have had it in the first place. Or that if he did, he _did_ lose it. So completely that the thought of having it again is something that surprises him even six months later.

“Okay, that’s nice of you, but, I mean, what is it really, other than an excuse to get drunk?” David adds. “We can do that any time. We _do_ do that all the time.”

“Yeah, but not fancy,” Abdi points out, Carlos next to him nodding enthusiastically.

David snorts a laugh. “If you want to get dressed up fancy to get drunk, you’re free to do that, Abdi. This is a safe space.”

Jonas laughs, and Matteo shakes his head in amusement, catching David’s eyes briefly. David shrugs at him, a small kind of movement that Matteo can only think to copy. If David doesn't want to come, of course he doesn’t have to come. But he’s with Jonas on this one. It won’t be the same without David there. And that’s not just because Matteo really wants to see him in a suit, sure that he cleans up exceptionally well. There’s a sharpness to David’s whole demeanour that Matteo thinks would suit formal wear in a way that he knows he himself could never pull off.

“That’s not the same!” Abdi complains.

“You don’t have to go, of course,” Jonas cuts in, probably sensing that this isn’t going to go anywhere productive from this point on. “But we’d love it if you did. We really would miss you, bro.”

David sighs heavily, but he’s smiling too, even as he shakes his head at them all. “Fine. I’ll think about it.”

Carlos snorts a laugh and throws the football over at David like he means to hit him, though no one’s surprised when David catches it instead. “Man, you’re spending too much time with Luigi. You’re going to end up just as boring as he is.”

“Hey, rude,” Matteo complains, pulling grass out from next to his criss-crossed legs and throwing that over in Carlos’ direction. Predictably, it doesn’t make it very far, fluttering down against Matteo’s own knees.

“I’m just saying. I thought gays were supposed to be fun,” Carlos points out with a careless shrug. “Like Hans.”

Abdi nods his agreement, pointing at Matteo like he’s trying to make sure he knows they’re talking to him.

Matteo frowns, and David throws the ball back at Carlos, a little harder than Carlos had if the noise when he catches it against his chest is anything to go by.

“That’s a stupid fucking stereotype,” he says. “Queer people all have different personalities just the way straight people do. Though you three don’t make a good case for that.”

There’s just enough humour in his voice to not be rude, but Matteo hears the steel in it too, smiling again when David casts a look to the side to catch his eyes. He can practically hear the ‘ugh, straight people’ in the way David rolls his eyes at him and then grins.

Carlos and the other two must hear it too, from the chastised looks on their faces.

“That’s not how I meant it,” Carlos says. “I didn’t mean, like, anything bad.”

David raises an unimpressed eyebrow at him, his look icy and level. “Generalising is generalising. It’s _always_ bad.”

“Yeah, okay. You’re right. You’re right! I’m sorry.” Carlos looks over at Matteo, shrugging a little helplessly. “Really, dude. I’m sorry.”

Matteo shrugs back. “I mean, David’s right. But it’s fine. I know you’re just a dumbass.”

“Alright, maybe I deserved that,” Carlos agrees.

The silence that falls after that is a little strained, even though Matteo grins at Carlos and shrugs again to make sure that he knows Matteo really isn’t hurt. It’s annoying, sure, but if it weren’t for David, he’s not sure he could be bothered to explain every time something is a little annoying.

And then Abdi sits up a little more, brow furrowing.

“Wait. ‘You three’?” he says, pointing to himself, Carlos, Jonas and then, haltingly, at David.

David raises his eyebrows at him in a clear challenge.

“Uhhhh,” Abdi stutters. “You, uh. You’re-- are you-- I mean, uh, you’re… too?”

Jonas sighs heavily and lets his head fall into the palm of his hand. “Abdi, what have we told you about asking people if they’re gay out of the blue?”

“But it’s not out of the blue! He said ‘you three’!” Abdi points out, face pinched.

“I did say that,” David agrees, voice measured, face not giving away anything. If Matteo didn’t know him better, didn’t know to look for the way his shoulders tense, he’d buy it too, this nonchalance he projects so easily. “And I do like boys too, but I like everyone.”

Carlos nods along sagely. “You’re pan.”

David’s facade of nonchalance slips into naked surprise. “Uh, yeah.”

“How the fuck do you know what that is?” Jonas asks, disbelieving.

“What the fuck? I know shit, dude!” Carlos protests. “Kiki explained it to me. Bi is when you like both, and pan is when you like everyone.”

David pinches his brow, but it goes unnoticed as Abdi turns his confused frown on Carlos. “Huh? What else is there?”

Carlos shrugs. Clearly Kiki didn’t cover gender theory.

“Some people aren't boys or girls,” Matteo cuts in. “Or they’re both. Or sometimes one and other times the other. Just google non-binary gender if you’re interested but for Christ’s sake, don’t ask anyone about that out of the blue either.”

Abdi huffs, crossing his arms. “Man, why are you not allowed to ask anything?”

“You can ask people who say it’s okay to ask. You can ask me. Probably Hans,” Matteo says and then snorts a laugh. “Kiki, apparently.”

“Hey, leave her out of this,” Carlos insists, pointing a stern finger at Matteo.

Matteo raises his hands up in a show of surrender. “No, no, it's cool. I’m sure she knows what she’s talking about.”

Carlos nods, satisfied, but when Matteo glances to the side, he can see David hide a quiet laugh behind his hand.

“Thanks for telling us, David,” Jonas pipes up.

“Yeah, bro. You don’t have to, like, hide around us,” Abdi chimes in. “It’s all chill.”

David huffs a laugh, but ducks his head for a moment, bashful even if he probably doesn’t want to be. “Yeah, cool. Thanks.”

“But speaking of my missus,” Carlos says and pulls his phone out of his pocket. “I have a date to get to, so I gotta go.”

“Fuck, yes, I promised my mum I’d help her out with some shit in the garden,” Abdi says, jumping up immediately. “Is past four yet?”

“Dude,” Carlos says, staring at him with wide eyes. “It’s almost six.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Abdi chants, quickly slipping his t-shirt back on. “I really gotta go; see you, guys!”

He runs off before any of them can really say anything, Carlos shouting after him that he’s a dumbass before turning back to them to offer fistbumps and hugs that are more hands slapping onto shoulders.

“Alright, I’m off too. Jonas, you going the same way?”

“I’m meeting up with Hanna to study for her exam resit,” Jonas says, trying and failing to hide the grin that overtakes his face at it.

Carlos makes the appropriate ooh-ing noise and Matteo elbows him in the side.

“Been doing that a lot, Casanova,” he says.

“We’re just friends,” Jonas insists. “She asked for my help. I’m not going to tell her no just because our history is a little weird.”

Matteo hums slowly, not even trying to pretend he believes him. “Sure.”

“Anyway. You guys walking to the subway with us?” Jonas asks, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb.

“Nah, I have my bike,” David says.

Matteo nods. “Yeah, same.”

“Luigi riding a bike,” Carlos says, shaking his head in disbelief. “Voluntarily!”

“I know, right? Who thought we’d see the day!” Jonas chimes in.

“Haha,” Matteo deadpans and flips them both off. They only laugh in response, but he really didn’t expect anything else. There are more hugs and Jonas ruffles Matteo’s hair in parting, and then Carlos and Jonas stroll one way, the ball tucked under Carlos’ arm, and David and Matteo go the other, towards where they left their bikes earlier.

“Do you think the boys would really mind if I didn’t come to prom?” David asks when they reach them, bending down to undo the lock on his, but peering up curiously at Matteo.

Matteo turns towards his own lock but meets David’s eyes for a moment and shrugs at him. “Maybe a little. They wouldn’t be mad or anything, but I’m sure they’d like it if you came.”

David sighs and straightens up again, fiddling with the breaks at the handlebars of his bike. “I just never thought I’d go, you know?”

“At your old school, you mean?” Matteo asks.

David nods and scuffs his shoe on the ground.

Matteo sighs. “Yeah, I get that.”

“And I didn’t think I would here either,” David adds. “I didn’t think I’d have a reason to go. Like, who’d go to prom with me? Who would I even ask?”

David huffs a frustrated sigh and then half turns away from Matteo, hiding the pinched look on his face and scuffing the toe of his shoe on the ground again. He kicks at a loose pebble and refuses to look at Matteo, but he doesn’t get on his bike and leave or suggest they get going.

Matteo doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say here. Of course the boys would love to have David along. They’re all friends, and it’d be great if they could do this together, the five of them. A celebration of their success and such. And of course Matteo would like David to come too. Because they’re friends, but also because he can’t help entertaining the notion of what it’d be like to walk in with David’s hand in his, with David’s attention on him for most of the night. Not just the night, ideally.

He swallows heavily.

“Anyone would be lucky to go to prom with you, David,” he says, because that’s definitely true. Anyone would. “But you don’t have to ask anyone if you don’t want to. You heard the boys, you have a reason to come now.”

David huffs a weak laugh, but he smiles down at the ground at the reminder.

“And also...me,” Matteo adds, heart thundering. He shrugs helplessly when David turns back to look at him, because he doesn’t think he can take this back or talk his way out of it. He doesn’t think he wants to. “We should go together.”

David huffs another small laugh, though it seems a little more solid this time. “Okay, we’ll go to prom.”

Matteo’s pretty sure he forgets to breathe for a second. “Really?”

“Yeah,” David says and laughs again, for real this time, eyes sparkling when he grins at Matteo and sends him a little wink. “I can’t miss out on Abdi inevitably making a fool of himself with Sam, now can I.”

Matteo laughs too, though his cheeks feel hot and his hands feel cold. “Yeah. Guess you can’t.”

“Okay. Well then, I should get going too. Laura and I are doing a movie night.”

“Yeah.”

David laughs again. “Bye, Matteo.”

“Yeah, bye. Have fun with Laura,” Matteo says on autopilot and then watches David kick off from the ground and swing a leg over the back, rolling out into traffic easily. Matteo watches him drive away until he loses the shape of him among the traffic, blinking himself out of his surprise to grab his own bike.

Holy shit. He can’t believe he just did that. He can’t believe David said yes.

He gets on his own bike and kicks away from where he stood, legs pedalling faster than he’s used to but still barely noticing the way his heart beats loudly and his breaths are heavy. He can’t stop grinning the whole way home.

  
  


Jonas laughs and Matteo looks up from the game of Zelda he’d been playing, turning to where Jonas is lounging next to him on the bed.

“Hm?”

“David’s coming to prom,” Jonas says with a grin, shifting around to flop down onto his belly next to Matteo.

Instantly, Matteo feels his cheeks flush with heat and his insides start to squirm as a smile spreads on his face unbidden.

Jonas waves his phone at Matteo and waggles his eyebrows. “He’s going with Leonie.”

Matteo’s smile freezes.

“What?”

“Yeah, apparently he asked her earlier today,” Jonas explains, and Matteo takes his phone when he holds it out to him.

Their group chat is pulled up, and the first thing Matteo sees is Carlos and Abdi's cheers and emojis and congratulations. And there, further up, sits David’s message. ‘I know we said we’d go together but I just asked Leonie to prom and she said yes, so… see you there.’ He’s added a winky face emoji and a dancing lady in what Matteo assumes is celebration, or maybe a comment on Leonie’s dancing ability? He wouldn’t know.

“I don’t remember us actually agreeing to all go together, but I guess we must have?” Jonas goes on, scooting closer so he can see the messages as they keep pouring in.

Matteo’s pretty sure his lungs aren’t working right, because when he goes to take a breath it stutters in his throat. He hands Jonas his phone back quietly, trying to will away the sudden clamp around his throat and his chest.

“Luigi?”

“Uh, yeah,” Matteo says. “Good, uh, good for him.”

His thoughts are racing so fast he can’t actually grasp hold of any specific one. He’s pretty sure his eyes are stinging with what, mortifyingly, must be tears, so he closes his laptop and pushes it away and then buries his head forward into his arms, hands grabbing at his own hair and pulling at it a little, trying to distract from the way his chest wants to cave in on itself.

“Matteo?” Jonas asks again, that gentle voice he only ever pulls out when he thinks Matteo’s really not okay. “Bro, what’s going on?”

“I asked him to prom, yesterday,” Matteo tells his arms and the duvet, squeezing his eyes shut even though his arms are blocking all the light.

“What? Man, I can’t hear you like that.”

Matteo screams into his arms, just briefly, and then rolls onto his back, stubbornly avoiding Jonas’ eyes.

“I asked him to prom, yesterday,” he repeats, to the ceiling this time.

“And he said yes?” Jonas asks.

Matteo groans and rubs a hand over his eyes. “Fucking yes he said yes. Would I be surprised otherwise?”

“Well then, what the fuck? Why is he going with Leonie now? Why did he _ask her?_ ”

“I don’t know!” Matteo says, too loud, and feels the tears sting at his eyes again.

“Okay, wait, hang on,” Jonas says. “That doesn’t make sense. David’s not like that.”

Matteo swallows heavily, because, _yeah_ , that’s what he thought too. This doesn’t make any sense.

“Bro, what happened? _Exactly?_ ”

“Yesterday, when we were walking to our bikes after the park, he asked if you guys would be mad if he didn’t come to prom and I said no, of course not--”

“Obviously _not_ ,” Jonas interrupts, and then reaches out to touch Matteo’s elbow. “Sorry. Continue.”

“Obviously not,” Matteo echoes and takes a deep breath, twisting the hem of his t-shirt in his hand. “Anyway, then he said something like ‘who would I even go with’ and I said ‘we should go together’ and he said ‘okay we will’.”

The silence that falls between them is heavy and Matteo swallows again and pulls his lips in between his teeth in agitation. His face is flushed with a blush, unused to talking about _a boy he likes_ to his best friend, but-- he can’t face this alone. He needs someone to tell him what’s happening here.

“Oh, Matteo,” Jonas says softly, and when Matteo rolls his head to the side to look at him, he’s met with the gentlest expression of sympathy on Jonas’ face. “Maybe he thought-- because we were just talking about it before that-- do you think he thought you were asking him to come with all of us? Like a group thing?”

There’s a swoop in Matteo’s stomach as it plummets down to the soles of his feet and his breath feels like it catches on nothing. The fabric of his-shirt is soft as he twists it around his fingers, tight enough that it cuts his bloodflow a little.

“But I wasn’t,” he says.

Jonas grimaces and shrugs. “Maybe you can tell him? That you meant, like, a date?”

Absently, Matteo wonders if that’s as weird for Jonas to say as it is for him to hear, but more importantly he can absolutely not tell David that.

“Yeah sure,” he says and rolls his eyes, huffing a frustrated breath.

“Well, why not?”

“What am I going to do? Just go up to him and say ‘Oh hey, remember that time I asked you to prom? Well, even though you’re clearly not interested, as evidenced by the fact that you _asked someone else to go with you_ , I meant to ask you on a date! So how about it?’? Thanks, I think I’ll spare myself another round of rejection.”

Jonas sighs and shrinks a little.

“Sorry,” Matteo says and rubs a hand over his eyes. It’s not like it’s Jonas’ fault. “I know you’re trying to help.”

“It’s okay, bro.” Jonas shrugs and reaches out again for Matteo’s elbow to give him a little squeeze. “This sucks.”

Matteo groans and then puts both of his hands over his face, taking a few deep breaths until it feels less like every one of his limbs is about to tear apart with tension.

“So… David, eh?” Jonas hedges.

Matteo groans again. “Seriously?”

Jonas huffs a quiet laugh and then reaches for Matteo’s hands, pulling them down off his face. There’s none of that awful sympathy on his face now, so at least it’s easier to look at him.

“Come on, dude. You’ve never told me anything like this before.”

There’s more than one very good reason for that, but Matteo isn’t about to fill in the parts of the picture that Jonas doesn’t already know about.

Jonas tilts his head like he’s thinking and then shrugs, looking back down at Matteo. “He’s handsome. I guess I can see it.”

“Please don’t,” Matteo says immediately, feeling a frown grow on his face at the same time as he flushes with heat. “That’s just weird.”

“What, I have eyes! Just because I’m not into guys--”

“Yes, you’re very comfortably straight, I get it,” Matteo cuts him off, squirming a little. “But you don’t have to, like, do this.”

“Fine,” Jonas says and sighs an exaggerated sigh, rolling his eyes just in case Matteo doesn’t get how ridiculous Jonas thinks he’s being. “But you do like him?”

“Of course I like him, we’re friends,” Matteo says, just to see the expression of fond frustration on Jonas’ face.

“Luigi, I swear to god.”

Matteo grins a little and then breathes deeply again. “Yeah. I like him.”

“Tell me about it?” Jonas suggests.

Matteo’s never really tried to put it into words, the way he always wants to smile around David, the way he always wants to talk to him, even when they just said goodbye a few minutes ago.

He shrugs. “I just really like being around him. I never feel like I have to try super hard or anything. He just gets me.”

Their eyes meet and Jonas raises an eyebrow, making Matteo snort. “Well, usually.”

Jonas laughs, and Matteo feels his heart lighten just a little bit.

“It’s just nice with him. I know that sounds super boring and lame, but I just want to be around him all the time. Every time he smiles, I want to make sure he never has a reason to stop.”

“Oh, dude,” Jonas says, and Matteo’s cheeks flush with the kind of blush that makes him look away and hide his face in his hands again. _Jesus fuck._ “You’ve got it bad.”

Matteo groans into his hands again, because, yeah. He really, really does.

Prom is going to suck.

  
  


Prom sucks.

Sure, the music is alright, because Sam’s brother is actually good at what he does and has great taste in music. His friends are having fun. The food was alright. The drinks have been… copious.

And David does, as Matteo predicted, look spectacular in his suit; blue and checked and making him stand out from the crowd in a way that makes it look like everyone else didn’t even try, their own suits be damned.

And Leonie looks good on his arm, in her own suit, her hair and makeup as understated as Matteo has always known her to prefer.

They’re probably, objectively, cute together. But Matteo doesn’t think he can take much more of seeing them dance.

Turns out the dancing lady emoji might actually have been about dancing, because Matteo’s pretty sure they’re doing some sort of actual ballroom things. They’re beaming at each other, smiles sparkling under the coloured lights, some of the colour powder from earlier still in both of their hair and on their clothes, but it only makes everything look more joyful. Careless and free in a way that Matteo wants, badly, for himself.

"Why does she have a _boyfriend?_ " Jonas laments, voice heavy with sorrow and alcohol, arm even heavier where it falls around Matteo’s shoulders as he falls down onto the chair next to him. Matteo wraps his own around Jonas’ waist when he sways, pulling him close to his side and holding up what feels like a solid 90% of his weight when Jonas simply slumps against his shoulder.

"Jesus Christ, Jonas," he mumbles, shifting his grip on Jonas when he wriggles around as he gestures out at the dancefloor where Hanna and Stefan are wrapped around each other, looking cosy. He almost slips off his chair, and Matteo reaches over to grab him with his second hand too, pulling him in harder.

"Why didn’t she tell me? We spent shomu-- so much time together studying and she never-- never memtiom-- never said!"

"I don’t know, bro," Matteo says and attempts to pat him consolingly with one hand.

His own gaze, almost guiltily, slides away from Hanna and Stefan to where David is twirling Leonie under his arm, laughing brightly and pulling her close to his body when she’s facing him again.

He’s not unused to jealousy, but watching the two of them together makes him burn in a way that’s bright and deep, a cold kind of fire that licks at his heart and makes him want to scream and throw things. Turns out unrequited crushes aren’t any easier just because you’ve admitted to them to your friends.

"I wish I hadn’t fucked it all up last year," Jonas says. He sounds close to tears now, so Matteo makes the executive decision that they've had enough of prom.

"Okay, come on," he says, and takes the beer bottle from Jonas hand to set it down on the floor under the chair. It’s probably going to fall over and spill anyway, but he can’t be bothered to care. "I’m taking you home."

It takes a moment or five to get Jonas up onto his feet again, and by the time Matteo’s managed to arrange them in a way that they can walk, albeit slowly, he’s decided he won’t try and find the others to explain that they’re leaving. He’ll send them a message later in the group and they can figure it out.

Jonas went _hard_ on the drinks, so it’s not even that late yet and they’re definitely some of the first people leaving. But that also means the subway’s still running and all Matteo has to do is get Jonas onto the train and plop him down onto a seat. Jonas actually falls asleep on Matteo’s shoulder for the twenty minute ride, and Matteo pretends not to notice the slightly odd stare they’re getting from that one guy who thankfully gets off two stops later, or the smile the lady across the aisle is giving them.

The trek from the subway to Matteo’s place thankfully turns out to be a little easier than getting on the train had been in the first place. The nap and the crisp night air seem to wake Jonas up enough that he can walk without leaning half of his wait onto Matteo’s shoulders. It has sobered Matteo up a little too, though he can still feel the residual sway in his body and knows he’s going to wake up to a headache tomorrow.

However much they might have sobered up, it does not stop Jonas’ maudlin soliloquies about Hanna, and Hanna’s boyfriend, and how Jonas can’t believe he’s missed his chance again, and does Matteo think if he’d just asked her earlier, if he’d not hooked up with all those girls last year, if he had done this or not done that, would they have gotten back together?

The guilt over his part in their breakup in the first place doesn’t make any of that easier to listen to.

“I don’t know, Jonas, I’m sorry,” he says for what feels like the hundredth time, fishing his keys out of his pocket to unlock the front door.

He’s not sure how they are going to handle the stairs, but at least they only have to make it up one floor.

“No, I’m sorry,” Jonas wails, a little too loudly where he’s hanging off of Matteo’s shoulders again. “I’m sorry David went to prom with Leonie.”

Matteo has been very successfully Not Thinking About It until right this moment, but the image of the two of them on the dance floor comes up as easily in his mind as it does unbidden.

“Like, Leonie is great,” Jonas amends. “But you’re great too, bro!”

“Thanks,” Matteo says, drily, and finally gets the door open, wrapping an arm back around Jonas to kind of push him through it and into the stairwell.

“Like, sure, I don’t know what David’s into, but you’re pretty,” Jonas says and squints at Matteo in the hallway light that turns on as soon as they’ve stumbled far enough into the building. “Right?”

Matteo can’t help but shake his head and snort a laugh. “Thanks, I think?”

Jonas’ face falls like he thinks Matteo isn’t taking him seriously enough – to be fair, Matteo absolutely isn’t – and he gestures at Matteo’s face, almost tripping backwards over his own feet. “No, but you have, like--- a face!”

“Yes, I do,” Matteo agrees and then grabs Jonas by the arms to steer him towards the stairs. Jonas doesn’t even seem to notice.

“And you’re funny!” he goes on. “I know David thinks you’re funny; he laughs at your jokes, dude.”

“That’s nice.”

“Leonie is funny too, I guess,” Jonas mumbles to himself, like he’s trying to work out a pro and con list of dating points in his head. Matteo is going to make so much fun of him for this tomorrow. “I mean, I can’t pretend she’s not cute. I dated Leonie.”

“You did,” Matteo agrees.

Jonas gasps and grabs for Matteo’s arm then, face stricken when Matteo looks over at him. “And I cheated on her. That was really bad.”

“She forgave you,” Matteo reminds him.

“Yeah, but I really shouldn’t have done that. Do you think David will cheat on her? I really hope he won’t cheat on her.”

“He probably won’t cheat on her,” Matteo says, mostly because he can’t imagine David cheating on anyone. Then again, he would have said the same thing about Jonas – would probably still say the same thing about Jonas, even though he knows better. But Matteo is biased about them both.

“I hope so,” Jonas mumbles and then almost trips over the very last step up to the landing of Matteo’s flat.

“Jesus Christ,” Matteo complains. “You’re such a fucking disaster, how did I ever have a crush on you?”

Jonas mumbles another apology and lets Matteo lean him against the side of the door to the apartment while he tries to summon enough concentration to get the key in the keyhole. Just because he’s comparatively a lot less drunk than Jonas is doesn’t mean he’s not still feeling it too. It’s a night of bad decisions for them both, apparently.

“Wait,” Jonas says then, and Matteo actually freezes, key in the keyhole, and looks up. Are they at the wrong door? But, no, then the key wouldn’t have fit, right?

Jonas’ eyes are wide when Matteo looks at him.

“What?”

“You had a crush on me?”

Fuck.

“Uh, what?”

Maybe playing dumb will work?

“Dude! You just said you had a crush on me! When the fuck was this?!”

Matteo sighs and unlocks the door, shoving Jonas through it as soon as he can swing the door open.

“We’re not talking about this.”

“No, no, no, we need to talk about this!” Jonas insists, but lets Matteo push him further down the hallway and into his room. “Why did you never tell me? When was this? Was it-- did I lead you on? Dude, I never meant to!”

“I wasn’t even out, last year, and no,” Matteo says. He figures there’s at least a seventy percent chance that Jonas will have forgotten all of this by the time he wakes up tomorrow, and if it makes it easier to put him to bed right now-- well, Matteo is too exhausted not to take that shortcut.

“I can’t believe you had a crush on me,” Jonas mumbles to himself, letting Matteo slip his jacket off his shoulders when he tugs on it. He moves onto his bow tie and shirt himself, thankfully, so Matteo makes him sit on the bed and then sits down on the floor to undo Jonas’ shoelaces. And then, since he’s already sitting down, he takes his own shoes off too.

When he looks back up Jonas is trying to shimmy out of his trousers, and Matteo is definitely not going to help with that, so he gets started on the buttons of his own shirt.

“Wait, is this okay?” Jonas asks into the quiet, face stricken when Matteo looks up again to meet his gaze.

“Is what okay?”

“Like, can I take my pants off? I can sleep on the sofa if you want!”

Matteo rolls his eyes. “Dude, you can sleep in the bed. We’ve done it a hundred times and I was just as gay then.”

“You’re sure you don’t mind? I don’t want to make things worse for you,” Jonas says, his face as earnest as only a drunken man’s can be. Matteo sighs and shakes his head, David’s voice in the back of his head saying ‘god save us from straight boy egos’.

“I’m sure. I got over you, remember?”

“Oh yeah! You’re into David!” Jonas says, face lighting up briefly before it falls again. “But he went to prom with Leonie.”

“Yeah, we’ve been over this,” Matteo says and then finally gets up from the floor to take off his own trousers.

“He should’ve gone with you. I like you better than Leonie. She’s great and all, but you’re greater.”

Matteo dumps his clothes on his sofa and then briefly considers that he should maybe shower, but dismisses the thought almost as soon as he has it. Instead, he reaches under his duvet for the t-shirt he’s been sleeping in this week, trying not to feel oddly touched at Jonas’ declaration.

“Thanks, dude,” he finally says, pulling the t-shirt on over his head. “Hanna should have gone with you and not what’s-his-face. You’re _way_ better than him.”

“You think so?” Jonas says, big brown eyes bigger in the dark, looking over at Matteo like a lost, kicked little puppy when Matteo crawls onto the bed.

“Yeah,” he insists, frowning now. Surely Jonas knows that? He cannot actually think that _Stefan_ can hold a candle to him, right? “Did you not hear him go on about his admin stuff at Greenpeace? It was so dumb.”

“It was?”

“Yes! And you’re way funnier too. And you actually know Hanna. Like, where did she even meet this guy? How long could they have possibly known each other? Mia didn’t even seem to know him and she’s Hanna’s _best friend_ ,” Matteo says. “What kind of boyfriend do you hide from your best friend?”

This is, he thinks, a perfectly sound argument.

“You did tell me about David,” Jonas agrees.

Matteo pouts a little, feeling all the righteous energy he’d built up sap right out of him.

“Because David’s the best,” he mumbles, picking up the corner of his duvet again so he can shimmy his way underneath it.

Jonas scoots a little like he’s making room for Matteo, but he doesn’t actually move very far. It’s also unnecessary, because neither of them are particularly big guys, and they’ve successfully shared beds smaller than this one many a time before.

“No,” Jonas says, sullen and quiet, once Matteo has lied down. He reaches his hand to Matteo, grabbing at the fabric of his t-shirt and giving him a little shake. “You’re the best, dude.”

Matteo huffs a laugh and tries to untangle Jonas’ hand from his shirt, but Jonas holds tight and shakes him a little more.

“No, really. You’re my best friend, bro. You’re, like, super the best. David doesn’t even know how lucky he is that you have a crush on him, okay?”

Jonas’ eyes are wide and earnest again and he’s grabbing Matteo with both hands now, looking at him head on like he really needs him to believe this. In the darkness of the room, and the privacy of his own mind, Matteo will admit that it chokes him up a little. Fuck, he may not be in love with Jonas anymore, but he does love the guy.

“Hanna too,” he says. “I’m really sorry that you two broke up. I should have-- I should have tried harder to help you guys--”

“It’s not your fault,” Jonas says. Matteo isn’t drunk enough to protest that it is. “Come here, bro.”

Jonas pushes himself up onto his arms with a lot more dexterity than Matteo thought he had right now, and then falls half on top of Matteo with exactly as much grace as Matteo expected, knocking all the air out of him.

“Fuck!”

“Dude, sorry. I slipped.”

“Oh my god, you _are_ a disaster.”

“I just wanted to hug you, bro.”

Matteo’s whole body shakes with silent laughter, shaking Jonas on top of him, even as he stubbornly squeezes his arms underneath Matteo’s body in between him and the mattress, holding him tight.

“Fuck, fine,” Matteo acquiesces, wrapping his own arms around Jonas’ back in return. “Give me a hug and then let me sleep, please.”

“You believe me though, right?” Jonas asks, pulling himself up just enough to be able to look Matteo in the face, far too close for comfort. He smells like sweat and alcohol, and Matteo can’t even move away because he’s trapped. Ugh.

“Yeah, I believe you.”

“You’re so nice, Luigi, okay? Don’t get all sad again. I didn’t like it when you were sad.”

“No, hey, I’m not sad,” Matteo lies. He’s a little sad, but he doesn’t think this is going to be as bad as the winter months had been.

“You promise?”

“Yeah, I promise.”

“Because you’re so cool and you shouldn’t have to be sad,” Jonas says, patting at Matteo’s cheek. “David is an idiot, okay? And I don’t want to be sad about Hanna either, but I like her so much. I like her as much as you.”

Matteo grabs Jonas hand, pulling it off his face, touched despite himself.

“I don’t want you to be sad either. You’re definitely so much better than Greenpeace guy.”

“You really think so? Even if I’m not David?”

“Yeah, even if you’re not David,” Matteo says on a laugh. “You’re still great, bro. You’re my best friend too.”

Even if Jonas is probably going to have forgotten this by tomorrow, it feels important that he hears Matteo say it now, in the moment. They’re not usually this cheesy, or demonstrative, but this is what drowning two cracked hearts in alcohol will do, apparently.

“Okay. That’s good. I’m glad you’re here. I’m less sad when you’re here,” Jonas says, half into Matteo’s neck where he’s slid off of him a little, not quite pulling out of the hug, but letting go enough that Matteo thinks even if he doesn’t move back any further, he could still fall asleep like this.

“I’m less sad when you’re here too,” Matteo assures him.

And then Jonas tips his head up and presses his mouth to Matteo’s.

Matteo freezes, limb after limb going still and tense, waiting for Jonas to pull back and laugh, to explain how it was an accident.

Instead, Jonas squeezes his shoulder and moves his lips in a way that can’t be mistaken for anything other than a kiss.

Matteo makes a noise – of _confusion_ – and Jonas takes the chance to push closer, to push his tongue into Matteo’s surprise-slack mouth, squeezing at his shoulder like he can make him reciprocate like that.

“I just don’t want to be sad anymore,” he mumbles when it doesn’t work.

The crack in Matteo’s heart feels so deep he almost swears he can hear it, so instead of pushing Jonas away and telling him to go to sleep, he grabs him by the back of the neck and pulls him in again. He doesn’t want to be sad anymore either, but even as Jonas’ tongue touches his, his hand grabbing a fistful of Matteo’s hair, and a part of his body recognises this as something that feels good, all he can think about is David.

David’s probably got his hands in Leonie’s hair, his tongue in Leonie’s mouth.

So he lets Jonas pull on his hair a little too hard, doesn’t complain about the elbow that’s digging into his belly, kisses him until he runs out of breath and has to pull away gasping.

“’m still sad,” Jonas mumbles, but he doesn’t try to kiss Matteo again, burrowing back into Matteo’s neck instead. “’m gonna go to sleep now, Luigi, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Matteo says, blinking up at the ceiling and trying to get his heartbeat back under control. His lips are wet and he’s still holding onto Jonas a little too tightly, listening to his breathing even out like he doesn’t have any problem just falling right into sleep.

Jesus.

Matteo reaches up to tiredly rub at his face with his free hand and takes a minute to marvel at and curse every life choice that has lead him here. He knows they’re going to laugh about this tomorrow – after the inevitable hangover – either because they’ll both remember, or because he is absolutely going to turn it into a joke and tease Jonas for it, but right now he feels… a little split open. It’s not lost on him that a few months ago he would have give his left arm to kiss Jonas and now he kind of wants to cry. There’s a heavy melancholia sitting in his heart that makes him want to close his eyes and not open them for a solid week or two. But though Jonas’ presence is heavy and a little too hot so nearby, it makes him feel a little lighter too. Maybe he actually will be okay.

For now, at least, he lets sleep drag him under and joins Jonas in blissful unconsciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D


	8. July 2019 - VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David and Leonie go to France. Matteo goes to Rome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N:** This one's a bit different, but I hope you enjoy it!

_**July 2019** _

When Matteo’s phone won’t stop buzzing, he sighs and pulls it back out of his pocket, setting it from vibrate to totally silent.

“You’re very popular today,” his mother remarks with a small, teasing smile.

Matteo rolls his eyes a little but smiles back at her. “It’s not me. It’s just the groupchat we have on whatsapp.”

“Are your friends busy making plans?” she asks, always a little anxious that she might be keeping him from things he would rather be doing when he comes to visit her. He’s not quite sure how to tell her that it does him good, to see her settled and enjoying herself, so he just tells her he likes spending time with her and asks her to worry less. To a certain degree, he thinks, it might just be a mum thing, rather than a thing about their particular history.

“No, David just sent a picture from his vacation.”

“Oh, how lovely,” she says, smiling still. “Is he enjoying himself? He’s travelling with his girlfriend, isn’t he?”

Matteo swallows, and nods, thinking of the photo of David and Leonie cuddling up on some beach in northern France.

“Yeah, he is.”

His mother hums, sounding pleased, and it pulls a smile from Matteo too. She always used to ask about Jonas, and Hanna, back when they were friends more because their best friends were dating, rather than because she was dating his best friend. She’s been making an effort to catch up with the way Matteo’s friend group has expanded over the time she wasn’t as present, and David especially seems to be a favourite of hers. It’s no wonder, really. Matteo probably talks about him more than any of the others.

“He’s dating Jonas’ ex-girlfriend, yes?” she asks, looking up from where she’s patting soil gently around the flowers she’s planting. Matteo finally slips his phone back into his pocket and kneels down next to her, picking up the next flower in line in its little plastic pot, gently wiggling it out while his mother is digging another shallow hole for it.

“Yeah. Leonie.”

“Well, she’s a popular girl, it seems,” she jokes, laughing when she catches Matteo grin and knocking her elbow into his side. “You’re not in love with her too, are you?”

Matteo can’t help the snort that escapes him at the idea and shakes his head. “No, I’m not in love with her.”

“Well, that’s good. I wouldn’t want you to have your heart broken, darling,” she says, just as gently as she is in taking the flower from his hands and setting it in its new home in the ground.

Matteo swallows heavily and watches her push the soil she just dug up over the roots, making sure they’re all covered.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to fall in love with a girl,” he says, keeping his eyes on her hands, on the way she softly pats the ground down, steady and sure, knowing just what it is the plants need to thrive.

“Why’s that?” she asks, brushing a little dirt that got onto one of the leaves off of it. “You're still young. There's no rush.”

He’s already halfway there, but it still takes a mental push for him to take the final plunge and just tell her. He hates how this doesn’t seem to get any fucking easier. “I’m gay, mum.”

He has to look up from her hands to her face then, to see her reaction, and she looks up at him too, meeting his gaze. Her features are soft and open, and she reaches one gloved, dirty hand out for his, wrapping her fingers around his and holding it tightly.

“I love you, darling. Very much. Thank you for telling me,” she says, and gives his hand another squeeze. She smiles at him gently and then shakes his hand a little, pulling him out of the focus on his quickened heartbeat and the blood rushing in his ears. “There’s no need to look so scared.”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, wiping his other hand over his face and trying to rearrange his expression into something more relaxed.

“Oh, nonsense. I understand this must have been hard for you,” she says. She pushes her hair out of her face with her other hand, smudging a bit of dirt along her cheek as she does, before she turns back to him. “Did you know I was seeing a girl when I was your age?”

Matteo is pretty sure this is what people mean when they say they can feel their world shift on its axis.

“What?” he asks.

His mother nods to herself, a small smile on her face. “Her name was Valerie. My parents weren’t particularly pleased, but they were happy enough to pretend it was just a phase I’d grow out of. Hers were worse. They kicked her out.”

Matteo stares at his mother, at the frown on her face, and realises he’s never wondered enough about who his mother was before he was born to ask about it.

“She lived with friends for a while, but… it got hard. Too hard,” she says and huffs a sad laugh. “It was the 90s, you know? People were still getting over calling AIDS the ‘gay cancer’.”

“You broke up?” he asks.

His mother squeezes his hand and nods, turning to smile at him again. “We did. I was very sad for a while, but I met your father not long after that and fell in love again.”

Matteo swallows and nods, looking down at the freshly planted flowers. Suddenly it feels easy to say out loud, necessary even. Like if he doesn't, it's going to rot inside him and turn ugly.

“I’m in love with David.”

“Oh, my sweet darling boy,” his mother says, pulling him into a hug and pressing kisses to his hair. “You’ve always had such a big, soft heart.”

Matteo reaches up to hold onto his mother’s arms wrapped around him and lets her rock them back and forth, soaking up the comfort and affection she offers.

“He sounds like a wonderful boy,” she says and kisses his head again, brushing his hair back from his forehead the way he remembers her doing when he was still little. “And I know it feels terrible, but I promise you he’s not the only boy in the world. You’ll find someone, and he’ll be just as lovely, and he’ll love you as much as you deserve.”

“Thanks, mum,” he mumbles.

She gives him a final, smacking kiss, and then pushes him upright again. “Well, these flowers won’t plant themselves! Let’s get to it! Chop chop!”

Matteo laughs and watches her shuffle over a little and then start to dig another hole. She has always loved watching things grow, so he supposes she knows a thing or two about the magic time can wield. And patience. He could probably learn something from her.

“Nonna invited me to come visit,” he says when he hands her the next plant, tiny roots dangling in the air, exposed and vulnerable.

“For her birthday?” Mum asks, smiling when she looks up at him briefly. “She’s turning 70 this year.”

Sometimes Matteo forgets that even though she wasn’t born into his father’s family, they were still her family for a long time. He wonders if she ever misses them, nonna and aunt Maddalena, and then feels bad it never occurred to him before to wonder.

“Yeah. She said I could come stay for two or three weeks, if I wanted to.”

“Your father will be there?”

“Just for her birthday party, I think,” he says.

She hums. “Do you want to go? It might be good for you. A change of scenery. Some sunlight to make you look less like a vampire.”

“You know I only burn,” he says with a roll of his eyes. But it really might do him some good to get away for some time. Maybe gain some perspective. He always loved staying with nonna when he was younger, hasn’t seen his cousins in a few years. He wonders how they’ve changed.

“You should go,” his mum says, smiling like she can tell what he’s thinking.

“I want to tell her first. About… me. I don’t want to go if I feel like I have to pretend.”

She waves him off, but smiles encouragingly too. “It’ll be fine. Your nonna has always been way ahead of her times. She only cares that you’re happy.”

“But it’d be alright for you if I went?” he asks.

His mum gives him a disbelieving look. “Of course it’d be alright with me, darling. I maybe getting older, but it’s not so bad yet.”

“You’re not old,” he protests with a roll of his eyes.

“You’re right,” she agrees, nodding to herself. “Maybe I should take the opportunity and get on those tinders. See if I’ve still got it.”

She winks at him and then laughs at the probably horrified expression on his face.

“Don’t look so shocked, darling! Your mother’s a person too!”

“Sure,” he says, a little weakly. “Just don’t tell me any details. And don’t swipe right on any creeps.”

“I won’t go to any secondary locations until at least the third date, I promise,” she says, laughing again while he tries to wrap his head around the fact that his mum just made sex joke rolled up in a John Mulaney bit.

“And you, call your nonna and then go have fun in Rome,” she adds. “Break a few hearts. You get that charm from me, you know?”

Matteo can’t help but laugh a little, wide-eyed at seeing her like this, but infinitely happy too.

“I’ll call her tonight,” he says, and thinks he probably actually will.

His mother dusts off her hands, the last plant safely transferred to its new home. “Excellent. Now come help me make dinner. I bought some strawberries too. We can make a berry tiramisu.”

Matteo dusts himself off too, picking up the empty plant pots, and then follows her inside. They sing as they cook and assemble dessert, the July sun lighting the sky until well into the evening.

He calls nonna from the backyard, his mum smiling next to him while she finishes off her strawberry tiramisu. Just like she said, nonna doesn’t even falter after he haltingly comes out to her, only asks if that’s why he sounds so sad.

“Has some boy broken your heart?” she asks. “Boys are idiots; forget him. Come visit your nonna! Rome is the best antidote to heartache. And there are many handsome, stupid boys here to help you forget your stupid boy.”

Matteo laughs, and promises he will, and then hands the phone to his mum when he mentions he’s with her right now and nonna demands to speak to her. He watches his mum laugh into the phone, the sun low on the horizon and the air still warm, and just sits in the moment for a bit. Right now he’s happy, and he doesn’t want to miss out on a second of it.

  
  


Less than a week later he’s at the train station, hugging his mother goodbye with a large backpack at his feet and promising to let her know the second he arrives in Rome so she won’t have to worry. He reminds her again that he has alarms set for all his transfers, and promises that he’ll be alright. She gives him a last hug and kisses each of his cheeks and then watches him climb onto the train, waving through the window when he gets settled. He waves back at her, and when the train starts moving with a sudden jolt, he blows her a kiss and watches her figure get smaller in the distance as they pull out of the station.

In all honesty, he’s a little nervous, but he’s as prepared as he can be, and when the ticket inspector comes through, he makes himself ask about the transfers and how much time he’s expected to have. The man assures him there’ll be plenty of time, and that, since they’re overnight trains, even if they’re a little delayed, the connecting train will probably wait for them. Matteo dutifully texts his mum – and Hans – the news, and then puts on his headphones, double checking his alarm and then settling in for the long haul.

Even though he knows she’ll be asleep, he sends his mother selfies from every successful train transfer, and finally one of nonna coming to pick him up at Roma Termini. Mom answers that one with one of her breakfast spread in her garden and a message telling him to enjoy himself and call her every now and then.

Once he puts his phone away, nonna holds him at arm’s length and looks him over before pulling him into a surprisingly strong hug for such a small woman.

“Look at you, you’re all grown up,” she says and squeezes him a little more tightly, like if she tries hard enough, she can mould him back into the shape of a little child.

Matteo laughs.

“Sorry, nonna. Couldn’t stop it.”

She swats him on the shoulder as she pulls out of the hug, making him laugh again. He’s forgotten how vivacious this whole family is.

“Nonsense, darling. I’m just a little emotional seeing you become such a wonderful young man.”

Matteo hasn’t spoken to her in over half a year, probably closer to nine months, since she called him to wish him a happy birthday last year. And even that wasn’t much of a conversation.

“I’ll have to call more, so it doesn’t surprise you so much next time I come to visit,” he says, and knows from the way she smiles at him that she hears the apology and the promise in it both.

“That’s a very good idea,” she agrees. “And let me know how your mother is doing, too. That girl doesn’t call often enough either.”

Matteo promises and then bends down to pick up his backpack, ready to follow her out of the train station. He could have probably found his own way to her apartment, especially with the help of google maps, but he’s glad she came to pick him up regardless. It makes it a lot easier to get reacquainted with Rome’s slightly chaotic public transport system. He dutifully lets nonna pay for his pass and accepts the condition of coming grocery shopping with her to carry her bags for her, though he doesn’t think either of them really think he’s a ‘strapping young lad’.

Nonna fills him in on more family gossip on the way back to hers than he can really place, unfamiliar with at least a third of the key players, but the streets feel different under his feet, the sky is a different blue above him, the air smells nothing like Berlin somehow, and even the inevitable sunburn he knows he’s going to get from just the short walk outside don’t bother him.

He already feels lighter just being here.

Of course his heart still aches when he thinks of David, and the idea of a gap year is a lot harder to commit to when all of his friends are making plans and looking at him with so much goddamn sympathy when he says he has none. Being away from it like this though, at least physically, reminds him that he knows, in his heart, that he’s not making a mistake. That he has things to rely on in himself. That he’s not going to fold under whatever weight he left behind in Berlin.

So when nonna tells him aunt Maddalena is going to come for dinner with her family, Matteo asks if he can help with cooking, and, after a quick shower and a change of clothes, meets his nonna in the kitchen for brunch and poring over her ancient cookbooks for some inspiration. Even though he hasn’t been here in a long while, it feels a bit like coming home, stumbling over his rusty Italian in his grandmother’s kitchen and letting her ruffle his hair when he’s being cheeky. It feels like dusting off parts of himself he thought he didn’t want and finding old favourites among them.

  
  


It takes only four days for Matteo to feel like he’s been in Rome for weeks. Stella and Francesco have already taken him out with their friends twice, and though they’re all a little older than him, it is undeniably fun, going out with a group of people who don’t know him as anyone but ‘cousin Matteo from Berlin’. The freedom to be as loud or quiet, as weird or solitary as he wants unlocks the kind of carefreeness Matteo put away years ago, when everything started turning sour back home, and he probably laughs more in that first week in Rome than he did for months back in Berlin.

Even the almost daily instagram posts and selfies of David and Leonie making their way through the French countryside can’t get him down entirely, buoyed as he is by sunshine, good company, and good food. Instead of wallowing, he lets Stella take silly selfies of them and posts those instead, and when one of her friends, Alessandro, asks to get in on that action, he only replies to Abdi’s string of eyes emojis with a wink.

Alessandro has dark, curly hair, long enough to pull up into a lazy bun, and dark eyes. He wears his face clean-shaven and his linen shirts half unbuttoned with the sleeves rolled up over his elbows. He’s at university for medicine and wants to be a paediatrician. There isn’t a single situation that Matteo can think of in which they’d have anything of interest to offer each other apart from a two and a half week summer vacation, but exactly a week into his stay, Alessandro takes him out for ice cream. They wander around with their cones, conversing idly half in Italian and half in English, no particular destination in mind, content to just make each other laugh. And when they've finished their ice cream and Matteo's lips have gone sticky and a little numb, mouth tasting of sugar and lemon, he lets Alessandro crowd him against the sun-soaked wall of whatever alley they’re ambling down and cover his mouth with his own.

Alessandro calls him pretty in English and pet names in Italian. He makes a pleased sound when Matteo buries his hands in his hair when they kiss, and he holds Matteo close by the hips, hands warm and big on his skin underneath his t-shirt. When Matteo tells him he hasn’t really kissed many people before, face red and shy, he smiles and says he only wants to give Matteo whatever pleasure he’d like to take from him. It’s such a fucking line that it makes Matteo blush harder even as he laughs, and he lets Alessandro lead him back to his apartment for a little more privacy than a sunlit alley.

They end up on Alessandro’s bed, kissing far past the last traces of lemon on Matteo’s tongue, until he feels like his entire body is buzzing with it. He can feel his own body heat under Alessandro’s mouth and hands, can feel where the evidence of Alessandro’s matching enjoyment presses against him, but he doesn’t let it move past hands under shirts, doesn’t really want to, if he’s being honest. Alessandro, for his part, genuinely doesn’t seem to care, kissing Matteo goodbye long and deep at the door when he has to leave for dinner with his nonna, and makes him promise to call him the following day when he’s free.

Matteo does.

And the following day, and the one after that. Alessandro takes him around the city and buys him more ice cream. He still calls him pet names in Italian. He makes no demands for Matteo's heart, and doesn't offer his own, but he'll kiss him whenever he likes.

Matteo ends up wearing one of Alessandro's linen shirts to nonna's birthday party, because Alessandro insists he cannot go in a t-shirt and Matteo refuses to buy a shirt for only this occasion. Nonna pinches the shirt where the shoulder hemline sits a bit too low on him and then his cheek, eyes twinkling and grinning approvingly.

“See? I said there were plenty handsome idiots here.”

Matteo laughs and bends down to kiss her cheek and wish her a happy birthday, the hastily wrapped box with a necklace he’d gotten her clutched in his hands. She tells him to set it down on an already heavily laden table full of presents, and then sends him to grab her a flute of champagne. It’s a nice afternoon that turns into a raucous night and even spending half an hour in small talk with his father doesn’t spoil his mood.

When he finally stumbles into his room to go to bed at three in the morning, his cheeks are flushed with wine and laughter, and everything feels just a little off-kilter. Stella is staying with them and shushes him when he laughs a little too loudly after knocking his shoulder into the door frame, and then claims first access to the bathroom.

“Don’t fall asleep while I’m gone, you have to drink some water and brush your teeth,” she admonishes when he fumbles his way onto his bed, swatting his leg when he rolls his eyes at her in response.

“Yes, mom,” he drawls, but he knows she’s right, so he pulls out his phone while he waits, scrolling through what he missed in the group chat.

Apparently, Abdi got lost somewhere, and Matteo sends a quick message to ask if he’s alright, frowning at his phone. Can’t take that idiot anywhere. Abdi doesn’t reply, but Alessandro sends him a message, and then a notification that da_vid.gif has posted a new photo pops up.

Matteo opens the notification first, snorting a laugh despite himself when it’s a series of pictures of David and Leonie making funny faces. They’ve been taken in bright sunshine, so Matteo doesn’t know why David’s up and posting them now, but maybe their day is just coming to an end too. Maybe he’s lying in a bed somewhere in France scrolling through his phone while Leonie is in the bathroom, deciding to post pictures of their day together.

Before his wine-buzz can flip over into wine-melancholia, Matteo leaves a crying laughing emoji as a reaction and then taps on Alessandro’s message. It’s a demand he bring his _favourite_ shirt back as soon as he wakes up that ends in a wink, so Matteo ruffles his hair, undoes another two buttons and takes a quick photo to send back. He doesn’t dare look at it before he does for fear he’ll back out, but he writes a quick message to go with it – _I’m thinking I might keep it actually_ and a wink of his own – and then presses send before he can change his mind.

Alessandro’s texting bubble pops up immediately, Matteo’s heart beating a little more heavily in his chest while he waits for the reply to show up.

Before it can, a notification informs him that da_vid.gif has liked his comment and then another one to tell him he’s sent him a message. Matteo taps on it without thinking, wondering what David could be telling him that can’t wait until tomorrow morning.

 _Can’t sleep either?_ the message reads, and Matteo’s heart fumbles and squeezes a little.

 _My grandma’s party just ended, actually_ , he answers and attaches another crying laughing emoji.

Alessandro’s message pops up at the top of his screen, but then so does David’s answer at the bottom. _Damn, you Italians go hard._

 _We know how to throw a party_ , Matteo says, watching David’s bubble pop up and dance.

_Are you gonna be back for Jonas’ birthday then? Sounds like we’ll need your talents._

_Yeah, I’m coming back next week. Can’t leave Jonas to his own devices on his birthday._

_Oh cool_ , David says, and then, _Leonie and I were considering coming to see you in Rome but I don’t think we’re gonna make it._

Matteo’s heart trips over itself, thumb hovering over his keyboard.

David and Leonie. In Rome. With him.

“Who the fuck are you texting at this hour?” Stella asks, running a hand through her hair to shake the tangles out.

“Alessandro,” Matteo says, and then taps on that message – _Maybe you should. I like seeing it on you_ and another wink.

 _You can see a lot more of it tomorrow_ , Matteo sends back but his heart has sunk somewhere down into his stomach.

Stella oohs at him and grins.

“That boy’s going to miss you when you leave,” she teases, and Matteo snorts a laugh.

“No, he won’t.”

“Ah, Italian boys, Matteo…” she says with a sigh. “They are passionate. They always put their hearts in.”

Matteo rolls his eyes at her and lets her giggle and crawl into bed next to him. It’s big enough to share, though it’s probably going to be a cuddly night for them.

“If you fall asleep, take the wall side,” he says, pushing himself up to go brush his teeth.

Stella makes a noise of agreement and curls up towards the wall, eyes already falling shut. Matteo grabs his phone and tiptoes across the hall to the bathroom, turning the overhead light in his bedroom off as he goes. The fluorescents above the mirror makes him squint his eyes down at his phone, but he finally manages to send David a message back.

_You’ll have to go some other time. Rome is great._

_Thought you fell asleep!_ David sends back immediately. _You need to post more photos so I can pretend I’ve seen it._

He, too, ends his message with a wink, and Matteo is just about done with winking for the day. It’s half past three in the morning, he’s tired and a little drunk. So he sends back a thumbs up emoji and then adds, _I think I’m actually falling asleep now. Going to bed. Sleep tight!_

He stares at those last two words, stomach curdling, and shoves his phone in his pocket, grabbing his tooth brush instead. He stubbornly stares down at the sink and hums a song he can’t place in his head until he thinks it’s been two minutes, and spits. With a brief glance at the shower he dismisses that idea and makes his way to the loo instead.

He tries not to check if David has replied to his last message, but when he crawls into bed next to Stella, he caves.

 _Alright. You sleep well too_ , David has sent.

Matteo sets his phone down on the beside table, ignores whatever it is his insides are doing, and turns his face into the pillow, closing his eyes. Stella is already breathing deeply next to him, and if he just lies very still and doesn’t think about anything at all, hopefully sleep will come and claim him.

  
  


“Bro, when are you coming back?” Jonas asks, pulling an exaggerated pout at Matteo through the phone's camera. “And why are you wet? Did you find a pool that does artificial waves?”

Matteo laughs and drops the towel he'd used to rub at his hair onto the back of the desk chair. Rain in July is rare in Rome, but not impossible, and while it wasn't really cold, if you're going to towel off anyway, you might as well get in the shower first.

“Got caught in the rain. You're lucky you called just as I got out of the shower.”

“That explains the lack of shirt,” Jonas says. “If you're not wearing pants either, don't tell me.”

Matteo rolls his eyes and flops down onto the bed on his stomach, the image on Jonas' screen probably shaking for a bit until he's got his chin pillowed on his crossed arms, phone propped up against a fold in the duvet.

“Obviously I've got pants on, dude.”

Jonas makes a non-committal noise. “I don't know… you're an odd one, Luigi.”

Matteo rolls his eyes again and yawns freely, the afternoon of sunshine and laughter – at least until it abruptly took a turn into rain and laughter and a lot more running than he usually does – catching up with him.

“What are you up to these days? I haven't seen you in the groupchat in a while.”

“Oh, you haven't seen me? You've been quiet as a church mouse!”

“Well, I don't want to rub my vacation in your faces, do I! Since you're all stuck in sad Berlin.”

Jonas laughs and shakes his head at him fondly, but then sighs, face falling a little. “I don't know, it's a bit strange. You're in Italy and David is in France. Hanna is usually with Stefan. Carlos and Kiki are looking for an apartment, so they're busy a lot of the time.”

Matteo hums, brows pulling into a bit of a frown.

Jonas grimaces at him and then smiles a little sheepishly. “I know it's nothing to complain about, really, but it's not exactly the grand summer of our lives or anything, right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Matteo says, because telling Jonas all about how much fun he's been having doesn't really seem like the right move here. “There's still time though. It's only July.”

“Yeah, of course,” Jonas agrees and pulls on a bright smile. “David said they should be back for my birthday and you'll be back too, right?”

“Of course, bro! Who do you think I am?”

“Well, I don't know,” Jonas laughs. “I imagine you're having a lot of fun down there, given the sparse updates in the groupchat and all the photos on instagram.”

“Uh, yeah,” Matteo hedges. “It's cool.”

“Dude, I'm not mad at you for having a good time or anything,” Jonas says and laughs again. “You don't have to pretend for my sake or anything. I'm just feeling whiny today.”

Matteo laughs too, reaching out to right the phone when it slips a bit, bunching up the duvet behind it a little more so it's got something more solid to lean against.

“Okay. Cool. I am having a lot of fun, yeah.”

It's then that the bed dips behind him under Alessandro's weight, and Matteo reflexively glances at the small part of the screen where he can see his own face. Alessandro's got his hair down and his head bent over Matteo's back, pressing one, two, three kisses on the way up his spine that make him shiver a little. A final, fourth kiss gets pressed to the ball of his shoulder, and even though Matteo turns towards him, Alessandro just gently lays down on the bed next to him on his back, bringing his own phone up to do whatever it is he's doing.

“Uh. Is that 'fun' then?” Jonas asks, drily.

Matteo blushes and rolls his eyes at Jonas, glad that Alessandro doesn't speak a word of German.

“Yeah, I guess,” he says. “I am hanging out a lot with my family too though.”

Jonas grins at him. “Sure you are.”

“I am!”

“Of course, yeah. That's totally what my grandma looks like too.”

“Shut up, asshole,” Matteo complains, but he can't help but laugh.

Jonas grins back at him and then glances down briefly before looking up at him again with a slightly more serious expression.

“So, you're okay? With the whole---?”

“Yeah, I'm okay,” Matteo cuts him off. “It's all cool.”

“Okay. I'm glad.”

One of Matteo's favourite things about Jonas has always been his willingness to let things drop. Sometimes maybe Jonas backs off a little too easily, but in general, Matteo is glad for it.

“I promise I really am,” he adds.

Jonas grins at him, bright and happy. “Yeah. Glad to hear it, Luigi.”

“What are you up to?” Matteo asks when silence falls for a little too long.

“Well, not much,” Jonas says with a half-smile, half-grimace. “But I'm going to the lake with Abdi tomorrow. I think he's hoping Sam'll want to come along.”

“Man, he is not giving that idea up.”

“He really isn't.”

“Might be time to tell him to just… throw in the towel,” Matteo suggests.

“Not everyone moves on quite as easily as you, Luigi,” Jonas teases, laughing when it makes Matteo pull a face at him.

“He's just got to work out what he's got to offer the ladies.”

Jonas snorts a laugh. “What do you have to offer then?”

“I'm pretty,” Matteo says, grinning angelically and watching Jonas laugh.

“Is that all it takes for the boys?”

Matteo raises a sardonic eyebrow. In his experience of watching straight boys, yeah. That is definitely all it takes.

“I mean, has he ever even had a conversation with Sam?”

“Okay, but you can't judge us all by Abdi standards.”

“I can and I will!”

Jonas laughs again, opening his mouth like he's about to protest, but then there's a voice somewhere from outside the frame and he turns to the side.

“Yeah, okay, I'll be right there,” he says to whoever it is, and then turns back to Matteo. “Sorry, bro, I got to go. My dad needs me for something.”

“Sure. See you in a couple days, yeah?”

Jonas grins. “Yes! A couple days. Be good until then, alright? Don't do anything I wouldn't do.”

“I'm going to do a lot of things you wouldn't do, actually,” Matteo drawls, and laughs when Jonas' eyes go wide with realisation.

“Okay, well, you know what I meant.”

“Yeah, sure. See you soon, bro.”

“See you!”

Jonas makes a face at the camera and waves frantically, and then the picture cuts out when he hangs up. Matteo huffs an amused breath and then lets the screen go black on its own and turns over onto his side to face Alessandro.

Alessandro is already looking back at him, twisting his own phone in his hands.

“Is that your boy?” he asks.

Matteo frowns at him. He's pretty sure he hasn't said anything to anyone that would make them think he has a boyfriend back home. Especially not Alessandro, what with all the kissing.

“My boy?”

Alessandro waves a hand through the air and then puts it on Matteo's chest. “The boy you gave this to and who made you sad.”

Frown deepening, Matteo moves away from Alessandro's touch just enough that he gets the hint and drops his hand again.

“That was just my best friend. I've known him since we were kids.”

“But there is a boy?” Alessandro asks. His face is kind and a little curious, but Matteo bristles at the insinuation. Is that why Alessandro has been spending time with him? Out of pity?

“Why do you think there's a boy?”

“I can tell,” Alessandro says with a shrug and winks at him. “You kiss me, but your heart… it's not here.”

“Well, neither is yours,” Matteo says, maybe a bit more sharply than it warrants.

Alessandro offers another shrug, conceding it, and then smiles at Matteo again. “Yes, but you don't mind.”

Matteo doesn't. It's one of the reasons he's been having so much fun with him actually, the fact that he knows – knew? – that this isn't going to leave either one of them hurting when he leaves.

“Do you?”

“No,” Alessandro says and huffs a gentle laugh. “My heart is free.”

“Well, lucky you,” Matteo mumbles, curving into himself a little more.

Alessandro hums his acknowledgement but then pokes Matteo in the forehead to get his attention again.

“I think you're lucky too, Matteo. To know this feeling. What it's like to like someone so much. It's rare, isn't it?”

Matteo certainly hasn't really felt like this about anyone else before, but, well, he was also trying really hard not to. He always assumed that was why. That and the depressing lack of cute boys in his acquaintance.

“I guess.”

“You know why else I'm lucky?” Alessandro asks, dropping his phone onto the bed and pressing closer, rolling on top of Matteo with his hands on either side of his head to hold himself up.

Matteo watches him do it, goes onto his back easily. He definitely likes this development better than talking about his feelings or whatever.

“Why?”

Alessandro grins and leans down, close enough that Matteo lets his eyes fall shut, and brushes his lips against Matteo's too softly to be called a kiss.

“Because your boy is an idiot and you're here with me,” he whispers.

Matteo can feel the grin on his mouth and almost laughs right into it.

“You're such a fucking flirt.”

Alessandro doesn't contest it, and when Matteo reaches up to pull him down into a kiss, he doesn't protest that either.

  
  


“You're sure you've got everything?” nonna asks for probably the fifth time now that they're actually on the platform. Matteo's going to have to board this train within the next five minutes if he wants to make it home tomorrow.

“I'm sure,” he says. “And if I don't, Berlin's not so far. You can mail me whatever I may have forgotten.”

“Alright, darling, no need to get cheeky,” she says and gently pats his cheek in admonishment.

Matteo laughs and lets her pull him down into another hug, pressing kisses to both of her cheeks when he leans back up.

“Thank you so much for having me, nonna. I had a really great time.”

Nonna smooths the lines of his shirt out – Alessandro's, the one he insisted Matteo take back to Berlin, despite it being his 'favourite' – and gives him a sardonic look.

“I just bet you did.”

Matteo laughs again, and then picks up his backpack, taking a step backwards.

“I promise I'll call more.”

Nonna wags a finger at him.

“You better, young man! Now get on that train before it leaves without you.”

Matteo grins at her, takes in the image of her on that train platform, tiny and formidable and one of the sweetest people he knows, and then turns around and gets on the train. The thought of going back to Berlin, to everything he'd left behind there very consciously, makes his stomach twist a little in not-so-fun ways, but he takes a breath and steels himself and goes to find his seat. There's nothing to be done about it except take everything one step at a time.

Rome to Bologna, to Munich, to Nuremberg, to Berlin.

It's going to get him home regardless, and he's going to be fine there too.

  
  


No one comes to pick him up at the train station this time, but Hans wraps him up in a hug as soon as he steps back through the doors of the flatshare and doesn't even complain about how he smells of travelling.

“Gosh, did you get a tan, butterfly? I thought that'd be impossible,” he finally exclaims, holding Matteo at an arm's length to look him over.

Matteo laughs a tired laugh. “I don't think it qualifies as a tan when you're just less pale as a result.”

“Well, you're looking like a real boy at least,” Hans says with a grin, and then lets him go, wrinkling his nose a little. “You smell like one too.”

And there it is.

Matteo grins and shakes his head.

“I've been on trains for twenty hours, Hans. But if you're done with your assessment, I'm going to shower and then nap. I promised my mum I'd come over for a visit in the afternoon.”

“He's home for five minutes and already has plans to leave again! Who'd have thought! Our butterfly is leaving the cocoon.”

Matteo shrugs and takes a step back down the hallway. “What can I say, I'm a real boy now!”

Hans laughs, and Matteo grins to himself and then dumps his backpack in his room, digging through it for his shower stuff. He didn't sleep too great on the train and he honestly can't wait to fall into his bed and just have a good, old-fashioned nap for a couple hours. He just about manages to stuff most of his laundry into the washing machine before collapsing into bed, and sleeps solidly until a few hours later.

After dinner in his mum's backyard, he calls nonna, making good on his promise, chatting for a bit about his journey home and what she's been up to since he left. Despite the nap, he's still bone-deep tried when he gets back home and just crawls into bed. Stella and Alessandro posted a picture earlier of the two of them with three ice cream cones and sad faces, tagged with his handle where the empty space between them is, so he likes the post and leaves an ice cream emoji in the comments and then rolls over and falls asleep.

  
  


“Luigi!” Jonas calls loudly, spreading his arms out wide when he spots him approaching them at the lake front. Most of their gang are already there, Amira and who he thinks are her brothers busying themselves with a small barbecue, and Hanna, her boyfriend, and Kiki arranging what seems to be cake on some blankets and towels that make a makeshift picnic area.

“Jonas!” Matteo shouts back and then stumbles a little when Jonas pulls him into a very firm hug.

“Bro, you made it!”

Jonas is grinning, bright and happy when Matteo pulls back, clapping him on the shoulders and then holding him still very much like Hans did to look him over.

“Damn, Rome did you good. That shirt has buttons!”

“Fuck off,” Matteo says, giving Jonas a shove strong enough to send _him_ stumbling a little. “You try and dress well for you best bro's birthday--”

“My birthday was three day's ago.”

“For _your best bro's birthday_ ,” Matteo repeats, staring Jonas down while he laughs, “and all you fucking get is abuse! Unbelievable!”

“No, no, no, hey! You look very dapper. I bet all the boys in Rome were lined up at the train platform when you left and crying into their handkerchiefs,” Jonas grins.

Matteo laughs.

“Fuck you, I'm going to go say hi to Amira, she's not as mean to me.”

“I really doubt that,” Jonas drawls.

Matteo raises his eyebrows at him significantly.

“Less than you,” he insists and shoves his present into Jonas' hands. It's just some trinket he picked up for him in Rome, but Jonas' eyes go wide and soft like he expected Matteo to show up empty-handed. It's insult upon insult today.

“Hey, uh,” Jonas starts, grabbing Matteo by the arm when he moves to walk over to Amira, stopping him in his tracks. “I invited Leonie and Sara too; that's cool, right? It's just, I couldn't well invite David but not Leonie when Hanna's bringing her boyfriend, and inviting Leonie but not Sara just feels weird.”

“I'm cool with it,” Matteo says with a shrug. “I haven't really talked to Sara in a while, so it's up to her, really.”

“And Leonie?” Jonas asks.

Matteo shrugs, and hopes he manages to make his face look sufficiently neutral that Jonas can't pick up on the way his belly squirms a little. He's not sure what it's going to be like to see David again, but he really hopes it's going to be cool.

“Yeah, dude. Of course that's fine.”

Jonas studies him for a moment and then claps him on the shoulder again, beaming at him.

“Good. I'm glad. Go see if Amira needs saving, she looks a bit lost.”

Matteo salutes him lazily and then ambles over to Amira, who looks up from the grill when she notices him approaching and actually smiles widely at him too.

“Well, idiot? How's it going?” she asks, slapping his hand jovially when he extends it towards her.

He grins and shrugs, settling in at her side and jostling her with his elbow a little.

“Can't complain, coach, thanks. How about you?”

“I have everything under control, obviously,” she says, and it sounds just testy enough that Matteo's not entirely sure if she's joking.

“Well, I have no idea what you're supposed to be doing with one of these except flip the things every now and then, so I'll defer to your expertise.”

Amira snorts a laugh and then sighs and looks up at him with a wry grin.

“I have no idea what I'm doing,” she admits. “But if I let my little brother try, he's for _sure_ going to set us all on fire somehow.”

“That bad?”

“Worse than you,” she says, and he laughs.

“Ouch. Though I don't know if that's a worse judgement on him or me.”

Before Amira can answer, one of the guys who'd been kicking a ball around with Carlos and Abdi that Matteo recognises vaguely from prom comes jogging over to grab an ice tea then, and Matteo nods at him in greeting.

“Hey,” the guy says, immediately smiling and holding out his hand for Matteo to shake. “We met at prom, right?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Matteo agrees, taking the hand. The guy has a very pleasantly firm handshake. “Sorry, I'm shit with names. You're one of Amira's brothers?”

Amira's eyes go a little wide and the guy laughs an awkward sound and then shakes his head.

“No, I'm not. I'm friends with her brother, Omar,” he says. “I mean. Omar is her brother. I'm Mohammed.”

Right. Matteo does remember that now. He'd been impressed with his hair the first time they met too.

“Right, sorry. I'm Matteo. Just in case you're also bad with names.”

Mohammed laughs and runs a hand through his hair in a way that says he remembered Matteo's name perfectly fine and can't relate, but before Matteo can work out how to respond to that or think of something else to say, Mohammed gestures at the barbecue with his bottle of ice tea.

“There are too many lighters on there,” he says, and when Amira and Matteo turn probably equally confounded expressions on him, he laughs again. It's a gentle, quiet sound that makes Matteo want to laugh along just for the joy of it.

“May I?”

Amira hands her tongs over and crosses her arms over her chest.

“Sure, barbecue master,” she drawls, and Matteo bites down on a grin behind her back. Mohammed must catch it, from the way he looks at Matteo for just a moment before he turns back to the grill, taking a few of the smoking lighters off and dumping them on a tin foil tray on the ground.

“That should work better,” Mohammed says, and then hands the tongs back to Amira. He tips his bottle at the both of them and then turns away again to rejoin the kick-about.

Amira looks after him for a second and then purses her lips in a way that makes Matteo consider asking what it's all about, but before he can, she catches the way he looks at her, and goes, “What?”

“Nothing!”

Clearly, she does not want to be asked.

Amira rolls her eyes and sighs.

“He's just my brother's friend. Sam has a crush on him.”

Ah.

“Well, at least she doesn't have a crush on your brother?” Matteo offers.

Amira pulls a truly intensely unimpressed face, and jabs him in the side with her elbow.

“Why the fuck would you say that?”

“Well, things could always be worse, right? Look on the bright side.”

“I hate you.”

Matteo laughs, and then looks up when he hears Abdi shouting his name, barely managing to step far enough away from the grill to avoid disaster before he's being pulled into tight, bro-y hugs by both Abdi and Carlos. They immediately start talking a mile a minute about everything he's missed while he's been away, talking all over each other in that way they do, all tangents that lead nowhere except to their elbows in each other's sides and laughter. For a second, it shocks Matteo into stillness, unused after even only a two and a half week absence to how _loud_ they can be, but then he laughs and joins in, falling into the rhythm easily.

Matteo's not sure how long they've been chatting, but the next time he looks up, Jonas is talking to David and Leonie, accepting a short hug from Leonie and a gift that David hands him. They're holding hands, and it feels somehow… odd to see them like this. Of course Matteo knows that they're together, and he's seen them dancing at prom and their pictures on both of their instagram profiles, but he hasn't actually ever seen them like this. Just being together.

Usually when David hangs out with them, it's without Leonie, and since they're not at school anymore there isn't really a situation where he'd just randomly see them together. He can't hear what they're saying, but then Leonie takes a step back and he sees their hands stretch between them before David follows and leans in to kiss her. It's a sweet, quick gesture, one born of familiarity and intimacy, and Matteo swallows and tells himself to turn away.

“Hey, Luigi?” Carlos says, trying to get his attention, and then he must follow the line of Matteo's sight, because the next thing he hears is him shouting for David's attention.

“David! You're back, bro!”

David turns towards them and his face lights up with a laugh, waving over at them with his free hand. Leonie says something to him that pulls his attention for a moment, and then she turns and leaves, and Jonas throws his arm over David's shoulders and steers him over.

“The five musketeers back together!” he announces happily, and David laughs again, bright and easy. They move into a circle automatically, all chatting, and David slots into the space next to Matteo easily.

“Hi,” he says, bumping into him with his shoulder. “You're back.”

Matteo laughs a little and bumps into him back. “So are you.”

David laughs again.

“Did you have fun in Rome?”

Matteo takes a breath and runs his hands down over his shirt, smoothing it out, the linen cool and nice under his hands. It's stupid, probably, but it helps. Wearing this reminder of who he was in Rome, of how he's technically the same person still and can be whoever he likes here too.

“Yeah,” he says. “I had a great time.”

David beams at him, eye glittering in the sunshine, his own patterned button-down shirt so flattering over his shoulders. He has definitely gotten more tan, skin brown and glowing like it'd be warm to the touch even without the sun.

“I'm glad. You'll have to tell me all about it,” David says, his smile softening into something a little sweeter.

“Leonie didn't want to stay?” Matteo asks.

“Uh, no,” David says. “She's hanging out with Sara.”

Matteo feels his stomach drop and his face shift into a frown. “Oh. Is that---?”

“No, no, it's nothing to do with you,” David waves him off, giving him another one of his smiles. “I'm going to grab a drink. Do you want anything?”

“Just water,” Matteo hears himself say, and watches David step away and walk over to Amira, giving her a hug hello.

Matteo squeezes his hands into fists just once, taking a breath against the rabbit-quick beating of his heart and then makes himself turn away from David and back to the conversation.

At least he knows his heart is where he left it.


End file.
